Botanical buildings

KAIG will be set on a 160-hectare site.
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A joint venture between British consultancies Barton Willmore and Buro Happold recently completed the design for the King Abdullah International Gardens (KAIG) – a giant botanical garden commissioned by the City of Riyadh as a gift to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to celebrate his accession to the throne.

Taking a subtle new approach to the creation of a botanical garden in an arid climate, KAIG aims to “explore, demonstrate and portray the great paleobotanical ages that have swept across this land.”

In fact, the KAIG design and use of organic material is so cutting-edge that Barton Willmore and Buro Happold won an international competition in 2007 to claim the right to design it and now, having completed the design with advisors from the UK’s National History Museum and Eden Project, KAIG is about to go to tender.

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Barton Willmore provided master planning, architecture and landscape design services while Buro Happold provided project management services, structural and building services and infrastructure engineering design, as well as a range of specialist consultancy services.

The JV team was also responsible for the design of KAIG’s infrastructure, which included earthworks, roads, footpaths, and coach and car parks, along with an energy centre, sewerage treatment systems and services such as electricity, telecoms, gas and water.

Sustainability
KAIG will be set within a 160-hectare site in an arid desert site within the KSA Central Region and, as a cornerstone of the City of Riyadh’s growth plans, will provide a new destination for KSA nationals and international visitors.

Visitors will be able to walk amongst plants, trees and flowers which lived over 400 million years ago, as well as a range of external gardens which will include a maze, butterfly enclosure and aviary.

“Indeed, this project epitomises our desire to marry manmade structures with the natural environment and produce a broader narrative about their complex interrelationships over time,” explains Nick Sweet, project director and partner in charge of urban design at Barton Willmore’s London office.

“I hope that KAIG will become a world-leading focus of mankind’s understanding of the process, consequence and study of climate change, capturing and displaying extraordinary ecotopes from history and from the present day, and presenting the choices that are available to us.”

The project’s centrepiece will be a ‘paleobotanic’ building formed by two adjoining crescents that will rise 40m in height. The building’s roof, which will be the largest ETFE-covered structure in the world, will span up to 90m. KAIG will also feature an array of specialist tensile, pneumatic and grid shell structures.

KAIG will also showcase sustainable development by incorporating renewable and low energy technologies. It will employ thermal ice storage and black and grey water recycling systems, with underground reservoirs for storage and, with the outside temperature reaching up to 50°C, this approach will be vital to the control of the different historical climates inside the various gardens.

“KAIG is just one example of where we are working closely with a partner to create a new type of sustainable community,” explains Sweet.