Tuwaiq Palace or Towaiq Palace is a building in the Alhattan Street of the Diplomatic Quarter district in

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the R ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

, which hosts government functions, state receptions, and cultural festivals that introduce Saudi arts and customs to the

international community The international community is an imprecise phrase used in geopolitics and international relations to refer to a broad group of people and governments of the world. As a rhetorical term Aside from its use as a general descriptor, the term is ...

. It was built in 1985 by OHO Joint Venture, a team composed of

Frei Otto Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for ...

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

, and Omrania. Tuwaiq Palace won the

Aga Khan Award for Architecture The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies in the fields ...

for the design in 1998.

Architecture

After an international competition in 1981,

Omrania and Associates Omrania and Associates ( ar, عمرانية وشركاه, also known as Omrania, is an international architectural, engineering, and urban planning firm based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Founded in 1973, it specializes in the design of contextual an ...

in association with Frei Otto and Buro Happold were awarded the design and site supervision of what was then called the Diplomatic Club. The Tuwaiq Palace is a response to the unique opportunities presented by the site, a design worthy of the majestic promontory site overlooking the sweeping Wadi Hanifeh below. The building's design features a curving, 800-meter-long “Living Wall” that wraps around a lush garden, with five projecting tensile (tent) structures providing shade along the wall. At the heart of the concept is the need for physical protection from the environment in contrast to the desire to view the unique panorama available from the site. The concept became one of a series of contrasts: light and heavy, garden and desert, modern and traditional technology, openness and solidity. The Tuwaiq Palace contains 24,000 square meters of recreational, social, dining, banqueting, conference and accommodation functions. Such diverse functions as a tenpin bowling alley, crèche, billiards, library, secretariats and hotel rooms are combined with the usual club facilities of swimming, tennis, squash, sauna, exercise, lounges, social rooms and formal and informal dining. All technical, mechanical and staff-related functions to support such a facility are included within the palace. Architectural historian and critic Chris Abel, a visiting professor at Ulster University Belfast, described Tuwaiq Palace as "a hybrid of mixed materials and techniques... creating a powerful fusion of traditional forms and modern technologies, carefully set into the desert landscape on the edge of the city."

Architecture

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