Saudi Arabia has set out on a journey. This historic land is today home to a young country: a quarter of the population are under 15; more than 40% are younger than 25; and 90% of the population are under 55 years old. The country aims to build a diversified economy that will provide new opportunities for this young population. To achieve this goal, Saudi Arabia is looking to the past, as well as the future.

As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, seeks to forge a new path in a changing world, it has created a wide-ranging programme of socio-economic transformation. Called Saudi Vision 2030, the plan draws on the Kingdom’s position at the heart of the Arab and Islamic world. It seeks to use its investment power to create a more diverse and sustainable economy. And it is using its strategic location on major trade routes to build its role as an integral driver of international trade, connecting Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Vision includes investment in cutting edge new technologies. A composite aerostructure factory near Riyadh will use state-of-the-art manufacturing to build aircraft components locally. 

The programme has seen investment in renewable energy, and in sustainable desalination. Research projects and investments like this will meet the Vision 2030 goals to create a thriving, diverse, economy, with new employment opportunities, that looks to the future. But the country, and the Arabian peninsula more broadly, have a deep and rich cultural heritage. Historically, trade routes ran from India and points east, to Rome and the west, stopping on the eastern shores of the Red Sea. The plan also seeks to leverage this strategic position, encouraging the growth of a vibrant society, with a strengthened national identity.

Ancient trade routes drove the development of one of the region’s first complex cultures, the Nabateans. This rich civilisation, with its cities cut into rocky cliffs, is best known for its capital, Petra. 

Its second site, Hegra, close to the city of Al-Ula in the north west of the country, is Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, offering many of the same timeless wonders.

The holy city of Mecca stands 700km further south, but within the same fertile Hijaz region, which stretches along the coast of the Red Sea. Jeddah was established as a port close to Mecca, serving both pilgrims and traders. Today, the city is a showcase for a distinctive style of architecture, which once was seen in cities on both sides of the Red Sea, but now remains only in Jeddah’s old town, or Al-Balad.

The style is characterised by tall townhouses—this region is the ancient home of the skyscraper—built around cooling courtyards and winding streets, and making use of techniques of passive climate control. Intricately carved wooden screens shade these buildings, and give clues to the former residents’ position in society.

The first Saudi state has its roots 1000 km to the north east, on the other side of the deserts of the Najd. Here, in Diriyah, a mud brick city was founded in the narrow, fertile valley of the Wadi Hanifah. In the 18th century, the ancestor of today’s ruling family, Muhammad bin Saud, established a new state here. In 2010, Diriyah’s At-Turaif District was also registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Through its courtyards, alleyways and buildings, Diriyah showcases quintessential Najdi architecture and tells the story of a traditional Saudi way of life. 

The country’s leadership is committed to driving the country’s socio-economic diversification. A new green, smart, economy is being built, which aims to improve the quality of life and achieve sustainable growth.

But historic sites in Saudi Arabia—like those around the world—are a vital part of this new vision. Places like Al Ula, Historic Jeddah, and Diriyah offer both a unifying link to the past, and a starting point for visitors who want to understand this historic and diverse land. The UNESCO world heritage sites will draw visitors to the country, and drive internal tourism. Their careful reconstruction and development will bring new jobs, and kick start wider growth in the local economy.

Dr Ehab Abdo is the Head of Project Management Consultancy Services, western region, Saudi Arabia at AtkinsRéalis. Vision 2030, he explains, is multifaceted.

“Saudi Arabia’s development aims are outlined in its Vision 2030 plan, as a comprehensive blueprint for the country’s future growth and development. The plan aims to diversify the economy, to reduce the dependence on oil exports and create a new image for the kingdom. We need to create a vibrant society with a high quality of life for its citizens. One of the key components of the Vision 2030 is the development of a touristic sector, with a focus on the historical buildings. To achieve this, the plan includes a range of initiatives to develop new destinations and improve existing ones.”

In many countries around the world, development has not always been spread evenly across regions. We can see this in east and west Germany, between London and the rest of the UK regions, and between the coastal cities and and more rural areas of the USA.

This is true too for parts of Saudi Arabia. And the Vision 2030 plan aims to ensure that development is spread across the country. 

“The distribution of the new projects goes wherever there is some kind of story to tell. Ula is happening there in the north, and at the same time you have Jeddah in the south, where you have this beautiful historical city, which was the route to go to Mecca.”

Roots and culture

Simon Millman is head of cost management, Middle East and Africa, for AtkinsRéalis. Vision 2030, he explains, brings together many different threads, and draws on the country’s history.

“It’s laid out quite clearly in the Vision 2030 plan how important cultural, historical and urban redevelopment are. They go hand in hand, because the tourism part of Saudi Arabia is going to build off these historic developments. And the way that urban redevelopment happens around them, is integrated, and part of that.”

The development of these sites will bring new tourists, but will also boost the local economy.

“Those ongoing projects are driving significant investment in infrastructure development, including transportation, energy, and water supply,” says Abdo. “This can help to improve the quality of life for the citizens and residents. We need to elevate the social welfare of the citizens, by creating better living conditions. For example, there is a beautiful project, in Riyadh, King Salman Park, which aims to create green spaces for citizens and visitors to enjoy, while also providing job opportunities and boosting economic growth.”

The scale of development will not only drive a step change in the country’s economy, but will lead it into entirely new areas.

“Those mega projects in Saudi Arabia are focused on developing and deploying new technologies,” says Abdo. “Renewable energy, artificial intelligence, robotics, are all helping enhance the country’s competitiveness, driving innovation, and creating new industries and job opportunities as well.”

And it is reshaping the way Saudis, visitors, and expatriates living in the country will experience Saudi cities, explains Vasushree Mohta, Regional Director, Urban Design and Landscape, Middle East & Africa, with AtkinsRéalis.

“The two things that pop out from an urban planning and regeneration perspective, are the idea around a thriving economy, and the diversification that they’re trying to create within that,” explains Mohta. “That’s to attract tourists to all of their heritage, as well as the natural beauty that they’ve got. A lot of people think of Saudi Arabia just as desert, but it’s got beautiful mountains, it’s got a beautiful coastline. 

“They want to create a vibrant community, and a thriving economy. And both of those rely on creating tourism, creating more opportunities for entertainment, creating new areas of work and economy, which is what the the focus of all of these projects is.”

The country’s history, and its historic buildings, are key to this new, regionally balanced, development programme, and to its sense of national identity.

The plan is not just to put Saudi Arabia’s historic cities on the global map. It is also about building more reasons for Saudis, and young Saudis in particular, to discover more of their own country.

“There is a misunderstanding that whenever we talk of tourism, the first impression is that we need to concentrate on the external tourism, on how we are going to attract people from outside,” says Abdo. “For a country like KSA that is developing and rediscovering itself, the new generation would like to understand the lives of our ancestors.”

Mohta adds, “I think like in any other place, in Saudi, the cultural heritage of the country lends pride and a shared vision to the people.  They look to the roots, to the beginnings of their culture, as a very strong motivator for the youth, and to generate that pride for people, to look towards the future and grow from that shared sense of purpose.” 

Building the future

Building a new economy alongside such deep heritage demands a careful approach, and demands a master plan that goes beyond individual projects. Context is key.

“Some of the stuff that we are working on is 1000s of years old,” says Mohta. “There are others which are 300 years, 700 years old. In al-Ula, you’ve got heritage that goes back even older than that. 

“There are the conservation requirements for the heritage sites that need to just be protected, they need to be respected. And you need to maintain a certain amount of buffer distance, you need to acknowledge them through view corridors. And these are the best practice heritage guidelines that you would see in a UNESCO requirement for these world heritage sites. “

That historical context is at the core, and must be the first consideration on a world heritage site. But the needs of locals are also at the heart of the plan.

“There is also a need to make sure that the visitors that are coming to these sites can get to them easily, have an enjoyable experience, and learn about history,” says Mohta. “The local people also need to be able to use it on a more frequent basis, it can become a venue for events. And that’s why a master plan needs to pay homage to a historic site, to respect it, but also fully integrate the site within the plan. It should be creating views, creating pedestrian routes, creating linkages, providing that seamless visitor experience without overly commercialising it.”

Jeddah: Past and future together

Abdo has been working on the development programme of the Jeddah Historical District, known as JHD, or Al-Balad: meaning ‘the town’ in Arabic, but implicitly, ‘the old town’. It has been a stopping place for pilgrims, and traders, since the seventh century of the common era—or the first century of the Islamic calendar.

Al-Balad is a complex and compact area, where history has been laid down layer upon layer, for almost 1,400 years.

“Jeddah Historical District is about 2.5km sq that was created around the idea of creating a route to Mecca,” he says. “There are around 1,340 assets there that are separated between heritage assets, and also non heritage assets.”

Abdo and his colleagues have been providing project management consultancy services for the Historic Jeddah Development Program, from project and cost consultancy services to site-wide utilities, design management, program set up and governance processes and procedures. 

In some Saudi cities, there is a clear delineation between old and new. But al-Balad has been at the heart of trade and pilgrimage routes for more than a thousand years. Locals have built homes for themselves, and hostels for visitors, all cheek-by-jowl, ancient alongside old, and old alongside new.

“When you compare this with the other projects that are happening in Saudi Arabia, those are fresh projects. The historical buildings are not scattered, they are not part of the living city. In Jeddah Historical,we are going to do a regeneration over 2.5 square kilometres of brownfield, living city. This is the beauty of that project, but to be honest, beauty comes from the challenges.”

It’s that eagerness for a beautiful challenge that Abdo, and his colleagues at AtkinsRéalis, bring to the project. The entire scope of this project must be planned out and phased, while leaving enough flexibility to account for the unexpected.

“The planning goes into two aspects,” Abdo explains. “First of all, is doing a proper zoning for the area. And the second aspect is doing an assessment of the current conditions of the buildings. And then you need to do some kind of categorising for the importance—as per the client’s requirements—and then you put it all in one holistic schedule for the development to make sure that you will start on this area, on this zone, after considering the requirements when it comes to the heritage assessment and the building structure.”

Work will be conducted across zones, ensuring that the overall plan respects history and is in line with the client’s aims. 

The master plan then focuses on individual buildings.

“It goes into three phases,” says Abdo. “First of all, you need to look at the building, and you want to make sure that you’re doing a proper restoration. Secondly, when you do the restoration works for that one building, you are going to add bracing to make sure that it is going to be immune against any of the effects of whatever is going to happen around it. That then enables the third phase, a rehabilitation or refunctioning of the building itself” 

Abdo cites the example of the Beit Nassif, or house of the Nassif. “It’s a family building for one of the old families. The people there in JHD started doing studies of how this building is going to be re-functioned.  They agreed it’s got to be preserved. We did restructuring work to sure that it is stable and that it will not be affected by the surrounding development that is going to happen for the other buildings. 

“And then we went into rehabilitation. You can go now and see this beautiful building, it’s a destination by itself, but it can be reused to accommodate meetings, conferences, anbd as  a museum. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The restoration of the Nassif family’s old home has preserved its beauty, while finding new ways that the building can be used. But it is just one building among many. There are at least 1,299 more for Abdo’s teams, and their partners, to consider,

“The master programme that we have prepared—with Primavera and Besix—to accommodate all of those 1300 buildings, it’s not a schedule anymore, it’s a booklet now. It’s almost an encyclopaedia of projects. Each one of them needs to have its own requirements coordinated, from the heritage assessment at the beginning. You need to also consider the archaeological assessment. You need to dig to see if there are any ruins there, before we start work on the building.”

Historic Jeddah is a city of narrow and winding alleyways. But it is also one of the first cities of skyscrapers, an architectural style that was developed in the Hejaz coast of the Red Sea.

These are some of the first residential buildings that were built vertically and not horizontally,” says Abdo. “You can see apartments on top of each other, with different floors using the stairs and steps. When you go to the Yemeni architecture, and also Hijazi architecture here in Jeddah, you can see that the development is coming vertically in a new way.” 

Unlike today’s architects, the designers of these ancient skyscrapers didn’t have access to steel and concrete. They instead developed their own ways of building tall.

“In those ancient times,” says Abdo, “They didn’t have modern construction techinigues. Instead, they invented those beautiful methodologies where they can use wooden straps every metre. They put those around the buildings and they distribute the loads in a way that works as a bridge between the edges of the buildings. This is beautiful by itself. But when you compare the old and new methodologies and the safety factors we now work to, it’s not comparable.

“The challenge here is trying to create an engagement and marriage between the old and new techniques. So we maintain whatever they are doing with those beautiful wooden beams, that works as like reinforced beams in our new era. But at the same time, we make sure that it is reinforced with our modern methodologies.”

For thousands of years, Saudi Arabia has been at the heart of global trade. It is the birthplace of one of the world’s great religions. The building techniques developed on the peninsula have foreshadowed today’s world of skyscrapers, and give us a starting point for new techniques of passive climate control. 

With projects like Jeddah Historical District—as well as at Al-Ula and Diriyah—the country aims to showcase its rich cultural heritage to the world, and to its young citizens, in a new way. As part of the Vision 2030 plan, they will also play an important role in diversifying the country’s economy.

Abdo sums up the impact these projects will have. “I think 10 years from now, there will be a new future of Saudi Arabia, and it will change the whole idea that this is a country that is based just on the oil industry.”