‘Few other nations have dared to attempt this’

Riyadh’s sixth metro line opened this week – just one month after the first and a decade since construction started on the network. 

Cities are not traditionally built this way. They tend to evolve slowly, through the incremental addition of “a stadium here or a retail centre there”, says Tariq Shaikh, co-managing director and Middle East principal for architecture practice Gensler. 

“In Saudi Arabia, we are witnessing an entirely different approach,” he tells AGBI. “The construction of entire communities and cities from the ground up, all at once. This is a transformative moment that few other nations have dared to attempt.”

While many wealthy nations have been fully built up for decades, Saudi Arabia is developing mountain and coastal resorts, sprawling industrial areas and more from nothing. 

For Nathan Hones, chief operating officer at project and cost consultancy Carter Hones Associates, the Vision 2030 giga-projects such as Neom and Qiddiya City are not “mere construction endeavours. They represent a new way of living, working and interacting with the environment.” 

These developments are “envisioned as models for futuristic urban planning”, he says, “offering lessons that could redefine city-making”.

Building it this way – fast and simultaneously – has provided huge opportunities for creativity and financial rewards, but also raises complicated questions about organisation and resources.

It is estimated that between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion worth of projects are in the pipeline. Industry professionals describe Saudi Arabia as one of the three biggest construction markets in the world – but the other two, China and India, have labour forces many times larger than Saudi Arabia’s population of 36.9 million people.

The pressure on resources and labour has been such that Saudi officials launched a review of the giga-projects last year in an attempt to prioritise the developments most closely connected to the nation’s global reputation, such as the 2034 World Cup.

One of the highest-profile projects was scaled back as a result. The Line will be less than 5km long when its first phase opens in 2030, with the rest of the 170km development coming later.

Reuters/Faisal Al Nasser

The Riyadh Metro opened behind schedule too. It was originally due for completion in 2018, but its opening in 2024 is still a feat. 

Roger Cruickshank is a senior director at AtkinsRéalis, an engineering consultancy that worked on the metro. He points out that Berlin has 155km of railway and Barcelona 160km of metro – and that both of those cities took about 100 years to reach that level. 

Saudi Arabia has constructed 176km of metro in 10 years. “It is an extremely ambitious thing, Cruickshank says. “All told, many hundreds of thousands of people I would suggest were associated with the project.”

On its western coast, overlooking the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia is building high-end hotels and related services, including an airport, amid red rocks and coral reefs.

That means laying down new electricity, water, sewage, transport and other infrastructure alongside the foundations of actual buildings. This requires a “holistic” asset planning strategy, according to David Jones, a partner at Eversheds Sutherland and a former civil engineer.

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Something as fundamental as high-voltage cables and transformers can be hard to deliver to remote, undeveloped locations given their size and weight, Jones says.

Construction workers have to be found, transported and housed too. Last October the Public Investment Fund set up a company just to build accommodation for employees in urban and remote regions alike.

Competition for skilled professionals is growing across the Gulf and Shaikh says the Saudi authorities must strive to balance “strategic international recruitment” with “sustainable development” of the local workforce. 

Other industry watchers have warned that the days of offering  “blank cheques” to Western consultants are over in Saudi Arabia. 

This is in part because oil prices are expected to remain subdued for the foreseeable future, which is likely to force Saudi Arabia to take on more public debt than originally budgeted to keep funding Vision 2030. 

As officials look to recalibrate spending while maintaining their huge ambitions, they are also confronting the climate challenge. 

Shaikh says the freedom to design on such a monumental scale comes with a responsibility to prioritise sustainability. 

“This means designing and specifying materials and processes that minimise environmental impact, conserve resources and create spaces that align with the principles of long-term ecological balance,” he says.