Bullshit construction projects (مشارع بناء خراء)

 Neom is arguably the world's largest and most controversial architecture project. Here, we explain the key details of the development in Saudi Arabia, which includes The Line megacity.

What is Neom?

An initiative of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler – Neom is a large area of the country that has been earmarked for development.

Although often called a smart city, Neom is more accurately described as a region that will contain numerous cities, resorts, and other developments.

The project is being largely bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund, which invests funds on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi development company established to create Neom, which is led by chief executive officer Nadhmi Al-Nasr, claims the fund is contributing $500 billion to the scheme.

It forms part of the Saudi Vision 2030 plan to diversify the country's economy to reduce its dependence on oil.

Where is Neom?

Neom encompasses an area of around 10,200 square miles (26,500 square kilometers) in northwestern Saudi Arabia. This is around the size of Albania.

The area is bounded by the Red Sea to the south and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west.

What will be in Neom?

According to the developer, Neom will consist of 10 projects that they refer to as regions. So far, details of four of the regions have been announced. These are The Line, which is the most well-known, as well as Oxagon, Trojena, and Sindalah.

The Line is planned to be a 170-kilometer linear city that will house nine million people. It will run from east to west across the Neom region. According to the developer, the city will consist of two parallel, 500-meter-high, linear skyscrapers standing 200 meters apart. The buildings will be clad with mirrored facades.

Octagon is planned as an octagon-shaped port city that will be built on the Red Sea in the far south of the Neom region. According to Neom's developer, the port and logistics hub will be the "world's largest floating structure".

Trojena is planned as a ski resort in the Sarwat Mountains near the north of the Neom region. The 60-square-kilometer skiing and outdoor activity resort will offer year-round skiing and is set to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games.

Sindalah is planned as an island resort within the Red Sea. Aimed at the yachting community, the 840,000-square-metre island will have an 86-berth marina and numerous hotels.

What architecture studios are designing Neom?

Only a handful of architecture studios have been officially announced as designers of the Neom project. US studio Aecom is listed as a partner on the Neom website.

The developer of Neom revealed that UK studio Zaha Hadid Architects, Dutch practice UNStudio, US studio Aedas, German studio LAVA and Australian studio Bureau Proberts are working on the design of the Trojena ski resort.

Dutch studio Mecanoo also confirmed to Dezeen that they were working on Trojena.

Italian superyacht and architecture studio Luca Dini Design and Architecture has been announced as the designer of the Sindalah resort.

Numerous other studios have been connected to Neom, with multiple studios named within an exhibition of The Line in Riyadh. However, the exhibition did not make clear the extent of involvement of the studios named and several told Dezeen that they are no longer working on the project.

US studio Morphosis has long been rumored to be the lead architect of The Line and was included in the exhibition. Its founder Thom Mayne appeared to confirm this at a talk last month, in which he stated he was working on a city that he described as "a big planning thing in Saudi Arabia that I can't talk about".

Other studios believed to be working on The Line and named in the exhibition include US practices Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Tom Wiscombe Architecture, Oyler Wu Collaborative, and HOK; UK studios Adjaye Associates and Peter Cook's studio CHAP; Austria studios Coop Himmelb(l)au and Delugan Meissl Associated Architects; and Italian practice Studio Fuksas.

Leading the design of the project is former deputy mayor of Barcelona Antoni Vives, who is The Line's chief urban planning officer.

British architect Norman Foster was initially on the Neom advisory board but withdrew following Jamal Khashoggi's murder. A spokesperson for his studio, Foster + Partners, confirmed that the firm is not currently working on the project.

When will Neom be built?

Neom is working to ambitious timelines, with much of the project set to be built by 2030.

Last year, drone footage was revealed showing site preparation for The Line taking place, while Neom recently released a video showing glimpses of progress on the site.

The first element scheduled for completion is the Sindalah luxury island, with the developer of Neom aiming to welcome its first guests in early 2024.

Port City Oxagon will follow shortly after, with the first residents planned to move in by 2024 and the onshore part of the city due to be completed by 2030. Ski resort Trojena is set to open in 2026.

According to the developer, the largest element of Neom, The Line, will "be rolled out between now and 2045". The aim is for one million people to be living in The Line by 2030. Some commentators have expressed skepticism about these timelines.

According to the developer, 2,400 staff already live and work at Neom.

Why is Neom controversial?

The Neom project has proved controversial due to three main concerns – sustainability, livability, and human rights.

There are numerous concerns about Saudi Arabia's human rights record – Freedom House gave the country 7/100 in its global freedom scoring, while Amnesty International has published a list of 10 ways the country "violates human rights" on its website.

While there are broad concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia and for the people who will be building the gigantic project, the direct controversies connected to Neom are related to evictions taking place ahead of construction.

The area that is set to be developed is the historic homeland of the Huwaitat tribe and it is estimated that around 20,000 tribe members will be relocated to accommodate the planned development.

In 2020, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti from the tribe posted videos online aiming to draw attention to these evictions. The BBC later reported that Al-Huwaiti was killed by Saudi security services.

Last year human rights organization ALQST reported that three people connected to Al-Huwaiti, who were forcibly evicted from the Neom site in 2020, had been sentenced to death.

Speaking to Dezeen, Amnesty International's Peter Frankental said that companies working on Neom were facing a "moral dilemma" and should "think twice" about their continuing involvement in the project.

Additionally, the developer of Neom has made many sustainability claims, with the development aiming to be powered by 100 percent renewable sources.

"We see The Line as a unique opportunity to set a new benchmark for combining prosperity, livability, and environmental preservation," Neom's executive director Tarek Qaddumi told Dezeen.

However, Neom – and The Line in particular – have been criticized for the expected embodied carbon associated with building the project. Philip Oldfield, head of the built environment school at the University of New South Wales, has estimated that upwards of 1.8 billion tonnes of embodied carbon dioxide will be produced.

He told Dezeen that this huge embodied carbon cost of construction "will overwhelm any environmental benefits".

Experts talking to Dezeen were also concerned over the mirrored facades' impact on animal and birdlife.

On liveability, Bin Salman stated that The Line "will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human liveability".

However, according to experts, the liveability claims would rest on how the city is maintained.

"These images project a degree of control which is very difficult to retain, especially over some time, even in a very autocratic society," said associate professor of architecture at Princeton University Marshall Brown.

Following the Saudi Arabian government's unveiling of plans for an enormous linear megacity in the desert, urban design experts have expressed skepticism about whether its utopian vision is realistic.

"There would be so many physical and environmental phenomena that would have to be dealt with to achieve the incredibly minimal and singular character that the renderings propose," said Marshall Brown, director of the Princeton Urban Imagination Center and an associate professor of architecture at Princeton University.

Philip Oldfield, head of the built environment school at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, warned that the huge embodied carbon cost of construction "will overwhelm any environmental benefits".

C40 Cities director of urban planning and design Hélène Chartier argued she would not "want to live in a place where it's so narrow", while architect Winy Maas said he "would love to live in such a kind of environment".

The oil-rich Middle Eastern state recently unveiled dramatic images of The Line, depicting two giant mirrored walls running straight in parallel for 170 kilometers across the desert.

Designed by US architecture studio Morphosis, it would be 500 meters tall but only 200 meters wide, with the gap in between filled by densely packed urban fabric alongside trees and plantlife and a high-speed rail network embedded underground.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman boasted that the city planned for nine million people, "will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human liveability".

Dezeen asked urban planning and design experts about how such a structure might actually work.

"It will not look like it is shown on the sketch"

"Is it feasible as a city? The challenge there is really a question of control," explained Brown.

The power of urban planning and design to determine exactly how a city gets built is limited, Brown added, particularly to the extent suggested in the visuals released by the Saudi government.

"These images project a degree of control which is very difficult to retain, especially over some time, even in a very autocratic society," he said.

"That is where I start to become a bit dubious. I don't mean to talk about this conservatively but I think there would be so many physical and environmental phenomena that would have to be dealt with to achieve the incredibly minimal and singular character that the renderings propose."

Maas, co-founder of prominent Rotterdam architecture studio MVRDV and director of cities think tank The Why Factory, is doubtful that any realized version of The Line would closely resemble the pictures.

"It will probably not look like it is shown on the sketch, for sure not, it will look like other kinds of densities," he told Dezeen. "I would not do that profile, with only two bars going straight up. That doesn't make sense in terms of variety, in terms of wind pressure, in terms of keeping cold air in."

Despite harboring some criticisms of the design as shown in the images – the non-porosity of the outer walls, for example – Maas is positive about the overall concept.

"I love deserts and I do see the necessity to develop them and to make them so that ultimately rain comes back on those places, so I think it's crucial to work on that," he said.

"Would I mind living there? I would love to live in such a kind of environment, when it has this kind of perspective and this message and this technical input and output, you can get me on board for making this kind of development. If this is the best place for it, if it's the best political circumstances, that's up for judgment."

C40 Cities' Chartier is less keen. "My first feeling was that it's interesting because we need a shock in urban development to endorse this idea of compactness and everything being mixed-use," she said. "But at the same time, I'm a little bit concerned that it creates some things that on paper seem interesting, but in the end is it really liveable?"

"I don't want to live there, to be honest," she added. "I don't want to live in a place where it's so narrow, there is a bit of the claustrophobic there."

In practice, the quality of life in The Line would rest heavily on its maintenance and management, according to UNSW's Oldfield, who has researched the experiences of people living in very large structures.

"Some of the internal spaces at The Line look incredibly alluring – lush atria, vast cavernous interior spaces Grand Canyon-esque in scale, with residents perched on the edge enjoying picnics," he said. "Even if these were built, the satisfaction of residents would mostly be informed by how such spaces are operated and managed, not how dramatic they look."

"What rules will be set? Can visitors use all the spaces? Which are public, and which are private? Will you really be allowed to have a picnic on a ledge above a 200-meter-high atrium? Call me a cynic, but I highly doubt it."

"This would require a phenomenal quantity of steel, glass, and concrete"

Brown agrees that living conditions within The Line would be largely dictated by how they are run and argues that, like in all cities, people would likely have differing levels of enjoyment depending on the resources allocated to their specific area.

"To expect that we would have a consistent experience one way or the other – the extremes being misery versus complete bliss – seems unrealistic considering it is 170 kilometers long," he said.

With the extreme compactness and absence of cars enabled by its high-rise, linear layout, plus the generous vegetation depicted in the renderings, The Line has been presented as a more sustainable alternative to conventional cities.

Its footprint would be 34 square kilometers – 46 times smaller than London's, which has a similar population size. This hyper-density would mean significantly fewer emissions from transport and less direct destruction of nature.

And Maas believes there are other aspects of the design that could be helpful from a sustainability perspective.

"The element which I find intriguing is that it's making this canyon-like space, so there could be a big temperature drop in the middle city gap," he said. "That is a technology that could be used to find ways to deal with increasing desertification."

In that sense, he added, "It puts a finger on a truly weak point of the planet".

But Oldfield is concerned about the embodied carbon impact of building The Line and all the necessary associated infrastructure, particularly considering its enormous height and the strength it would need to withstand wind loads.

"You cannot build a 500-meter-tall building out of low-carbon materials," he said. "This would require a phenomenal quantity of steel, glass, and concrete."

Oldfield has estimated that building The Line would produce upwards of 1.8 billion tonnes of embodied carbon dioxide, equivalent to more than four years of the UK's entire emissions.

"My feeling is this vast embodied carbon will overwhelm any environmental benefits that a small footprint provides," he said.

"Utopian thinking is important; it helps us challenge the preconceptions in the built environment that have generated conventional outcomes which we know contribute to environmental degradation. But the sustainability and liveability arguments here are naive.

Oldfield and Chartier also point out that despite its small footprint, the length and nature of The Line's walls could cause biodiversity issues – including for migrating birds, for whom large mirrored structures are highly dangerous.

"In terms of biodiversity, what does it mean to create a big bar like that that cuts the environment? What does that mean for animals, how can they cross?" questioned Chartier. "We know that highways create a lot of problems."

And both argue that densifying existing cities should be the focus if we are to make more sustainable urban centers.

"Part of me thinks this may be a distraction"

"I think it's interesting to have this discussion and I don't want to criticize, but part of me thinks this may be a distraction from the real decisions we can make," said Chartier. "It's better to consolidate a good model."

The concept behind The Line is not entirely novel. Large, linear cities have been proposed multiple times in the past accompanied by similar arguments about efficiency.

As long ago as 1882, Spanish urban planner Arturo Soria y Mata was suggesting the idea of a linear city, with Soviet planner Nikolay Alexandrovich Milyutin later endorsing it in his 1930 book Sotsgorod: The Problems of Building Socialist Cities.

Architects Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves imagined a Linear City for New Jersey in 1965. Four years later, Italian firm Superstudio proposed The Continuous Monument, whose renderings bear an eerie resemblance to those for The Line.

More recently, British architect Peter Barber put forward a plan for a 160-kilometer-long, 200-meter-wide city wrapped around London.

None of these have actually been built. Corviale, a one-kilometer-long social housing block in Rome completed in 1984, perhaps comes closest to being a realized linear city.

Though the project has received significant attention, whether The Line will become a reality is not yet certain.

"To even imagine what this would be like once it was completed or what would happen over time – even things like how much raw material it would require to build, how much force it would take to pump water through it from end to end, what happens to things like wind and heat at such scale – is not possible with existing comparisons," said Brown.

"We're in the realm of pure speculation, which points me back to the question of: what is this thing? I suspect the architectural image may be a provocation to instigate the conversation we are having right now."

If you regularly check out the leading global news sites, it’s hard not to notice ads for something called “the New Murabba project” in Riyadh, starring a giant golden cube called the Mukaab towering over surrounding buildings. The accompanying marketing material is long on superlatives (“a new way of living,” “a new icon”) and short on details, but it appears to be that the Mukaab will be a humongous virtual-reality theater.

How much it will cost to build the cube and the surrounding neighborhood (“the world’s largest modern downtown”) in Saudi Arabia's capital isn’t mentioned, but it is safe to assume it will pass the $1 billion threshold for the definition of a mega-project.

Unveiled three weeks ago, the Mukaab cube will be big enough to contain 20 Empire State Buildings, the promoters claim. The surrounding district in the capital of Riyadh will cover 19 square kilometers, contain 104,000 housing units, and eventually generate 334,000 jobs.

By itself, the New Murabba would be a major undertaking, but it is by no means the only or the most expensive of the many megas planned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s ruler in all but name.

The most famous and costliest is NEOM, the new city arising in an empty desert close to the Red Sea at a projected cost of $500 billion. A key feature of NEOM is “The Line,” a “smart city” planned to extend 170 kilometers across the desert and be just 200 meters wide.

A small sampling of the many others in the world includes Al Ula, which involves turning an ancient oasis-based settlement into a “Journey Through Time” extravaganza including a 46-kilometer “low-carbon” tram line; the King Salman Energy Park slated to create 100,000 jobs as a hub for the global energy market; and – in the framework of NEOM: “Oxagon,” an eight-sided floating city that “will revolutionize global manufacturing by creating a new logistics center that will redefine the world’s approach to industrial development.”

This gigantism isn’t limited to Saudi Arabia. Qatar just spent by some accounts $230 billion on projects related to hosting last year’s World Cup, and the United Arab Emirates boasts projects like the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Vertical City (a floating apartment tower) and The Link (featuring the world’s largest cantilevered building).

The finance of flash

Megaprojects are not unique to the Gulf, but as a rule, their size and price tags are dictated by necessity. China, for instance, has spent an estimated $700 billion on its high-speed railway system, but that’s a nationwide rail network that will serve hundreds of millions of people and the Chinese did it at relatively low cost.

The Gulf projects stand out not only for their bigness and costliness but for their flashiness – their enormity is seen as an asset, a way to attract the world’s attention and raise their host countries’ profile, but isn’t functionally necessary. Saudi Arabia, whose financial resources, land area, and population dwarf its smaller Gulf neighbors, has taken high-profile gigantism to (to use a popular mega-project buzzphrase) a new level under Crown Prince Mohammed.

In fact, it was Dubai that pioneered the concept of mega-projects. The thesis was that the oil resources that have driven the economies of the Gulf are running out and/or are likely to gradually lose market share to renewables, so the time has come for a new economic model. Tourism and high-tech are the No. 1 candidates, with financial services and logistics close behind.

But the concept is easier said than done. Wooing tourists is one thing, but places like Dubai and Qatar don’t have enough people to build world-class economies; while Saudi Arabia has a bigger population, its people have yet to show much in the way of innovative prowess, and the private sector that should be leading the move away from oil remains dwarfed by the state-owned oil industry and public sector.

The other problem they face is an autocracy, which suffocates innovation. None of the Gulf countries hint at any kind of transition to a liberal, democratic society; they are making just enough concessions to Western-style freedoms needed to draw tourists and ex-pats. But they are autocracies, and in the case of Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, an often nasty one.

Gigantism is supposed to cut through all these problems. Build an extravaganza like the Mukaab, and the tourists will come and spend. Build a futuristic city from scratch, and high-tech entrepreneurs and engineers will make it their home. The Saudis who join them will be inspired and educated and turn their country into the next Silicon Valley. Build a floating city shaped (for no particular reason) like an octagon, and even something as dull as a port and logistics center will sound sexy enough to lure companies to set up shop.

Do mega-projects work? In the case of tourism, the answer from Dubai seems to be yes. When it got started, the city-state didn’t have much to offer visitors, but it solved that problem by building a gigantic airport (one of the world’s busiest thanks to its role as a hub for Europe-Asia traffic) and developing a host of man-made tourist attractions, most of the gee-whiz sort and carrying the “world’s biggest” this or that label. Dubai tourist arrivals have grown by a third in the last decade.

The Saudis want to do the same, not only with mega-attractions but mega-sporting and entertainment events. The problem is that however glamorous travel and tourism are, the fact is most of the jobs it creates are of the low-skilled, low-paid variety – hotel chambermaids, souvenir vendors, taxi drivers, restaurant busboys, and the like. Tourism isn’t going to support a lifestyle the Saudis have become accustomed to with oil profits.

High-tech provides much better paid and higher quality jobs, but building either industry isn’t easy, no matter how much money governments want to lavish on new cities and “world-class” universities. Dubai has been pretty successful in cultivating a local high-tech scene. About half the investment in Middle East tech companies (not counting Israel) goes to Dubai, according to the Dubai research platform Wamda. Dubai boasts three unicorns - tech startups worth at least $1 billion.

But Dubai is a tiny place and the tech industry is dominated by expats drawn not only by lavish facilities and a princely lifestyle but by capital offered by the government. The Saudis have and need to have, much grander goals – NEOM alone is supposed to eventually have a population of nine million, nearly three times Dubai’s entire population today.

Using Israel as a rough benchmark, the Saudis will need to get 10 percent or more of the labor force working in the tech industry to become something of a tech power. That will mean coaxing hundreds of thousands of foreign engineers and entrepreneurs into relocating while transforming a couple of million Saudis into geeks.

That’s a tall order, and mega-projects are big risky bets that aren’t likely to fulfill it. They are just as likely to become white elephants as they are home to unicorns. Take Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, launched in 2006 as a combination sustainable city and a global center for cleantech companies. Budgeted at (by mega–project standards a mere) $8.5 billion, it has struggled to attract residents or businesses and its completion has been pushed off from 2016 to 2030.

The unfortunate reality is that buildings, trendy cafes, high-concept entertainment venues, and smart cities with ambitious but not always self-evidently practical designs alone can’t create a high-tech economy. Tech is about a certain kind of energy, outlook, and culture. The crown prince would do better to invest in universities and create a liberal, open-minded society. At least then, the kingdom would stand a chance.

 يمكن القول إن نيوم هو أكبر مشروع معماري في العالم وأكثرها إثارة للجدل. هنا ، نشرح التفاصيل الرئيسية للتطوير في المملكة العربية السعودية ، والتي تشمل مدينة The Line الضخمة.

ما هي نيوم؟

مبادرة من ولي العهد محمد بن سلمان - الحاكم الفعلي للمملكة العربية السعودية - نيوم هي منطقة كبيرة من البلاد تم تخصيصها للتنمية.

على الرغم من أن نيوم غالبًا ما يطلق عليها اسم المدينة الذكية ، إلا أنها توصف بدقة أكبر كمنطقة ستحتوي على العديد من المدن والمنتجعات والتطورات الأخرى.

يتم تمويل المشروع إلى حد كبير من قبل صندوق الاستثمارات العامة ، الذي يستثمر الأموال نيابة عن حكومة المملكة العربية السعودية. شركة التطوير السعودية التي تأسست لإنشاء نيوم ، والتي يقودها الرئيس التنفيذي نظمي النصر ، تزعم أن الصندوق يساهم بمبلغ 500 مليار دولار في الخطة.

ويشكل جزءًا من خطة رؤية السعودية 2030 لتنويع اقتصاد البلاد لتقليل اعتمادها على النفط.

أين نيوم؟

تشمل منطقة نيوم حوالي 10200 ميل مربع (26500 كيلومتر مربع) في شمال غرب المملكة العربية السعودية. هذا بحجم ألبانيا.

يحد المنطقة البحر الأحمر من الجنوب وخليج العقبة من الغرب.

ماذا سيكون في نيوم؟

وفقًا للمطور ، ستتألف Neom من 10 مشاريع يشيرون إليها على أنها مناطق. حتى الآن ، تم الإعلان عن تفاصيل أربع مناطق. هذه هي The Line ، وهي الأكثر شهرة ، وكذلك Oxagon و Trojena و Sindalah.

من المخطط أن يكون الخط مدينة طولية طولها 170 كيلومترًا وسيستوعب تسعة ملايين شخص. وسوف يمتد من الشرق إلى الغرب عبر منطقة نيوم. ووفقًا للمطور ، ستتكون المدينة من ناطحتين سحاب طوليتين متوازيتين بارتفاع 500 متر تفصل بينهما 200 متر. سيتم تكسية المباني بواجهات عاكسة.

من المقرر أن تكون المثمن مدينة ساحلية على شكل مثمن سيتم بناؤها على البحر الأحمر في أقصى جنوب منطقة نيوم. وفقًا لمطور نيوم ، سيكون الميناء ومركز الخدمات اللوجستية "أكبر هيكل عائم في العالم".

تم التخطيط لتروجينا كمنتجع للتزلج في جبال سروات بالقرب من شمال منطقة نيوم. سيوفر منتجع التزلج والأنشطة الخارجية الذي تبلغ مساحته 60 كيلومترًا مربعًا التزلج على مدار العام ، ومن المقرر أن يستضيف دورة الألعاب الآسيوية الشتوية لعام 2029.

تم التخطيط لسندلة كمنتجع جزيرة داخل البحر الأحمر. تهدف هذه الجزيرة التي تبلغ مساحتها 840 ألف متر مربع إلى مجتمع اليخوت ، وتضم 86 مرسى والعديد من الفنادق.

ما هي استوديوهات الهندسة المعمارية التي تصمم نيوم؟

تم الإعلان رسميًا عن عدد قليل فقط من استوديوهات الهندسة المعمارية كمصممين لمشروع نيوم. تم إدراج استوديو Aecom الأمريكي كشريك على موقع Neom الإلكتروني.

كشف مطور Neom أن الاستوديو البريطاني زها حديد المهندسين المعماريين والممارس الهولندي UNStudio واستوديو Aedas الأمريكي واستوديو LAVA الألماني واستوديو Bureau Proberts الأسترالي يعملون على تصميم منتجع Trojena للتزلج.

أكد الاستوديو الهولندي Mecanoo أيضًا لـ Dezeen أنهم كانوا يعملون على Trojena.

تم الإعلان عن تصميم واستوديو الهندسة المعمارية واليخوت الفاخرة الإيطالية Luca Dini Design and Architecture كمصمم لمنتجع السندالة.

تم ربط العديد من الاستوديوهات الأخرى بـ Neom ، مع العديد من الاستوديوهات المسماة ضمن معرض The Line في الرياض. ومع ذلك ، لم يوضح المعرض مدى مشاركة الاستوديوهات المذكورة ، وأخبر العديد من Dezeen أنهم لم يعودوا يعملون في المشروع.

لطالما ترددت شائعات عن أن الاستوديو الأمريكي Morphosis هو المهندس الرئيسي لمشروع The Line وتم إدراجه في المعرض. بدا أن مؤسسها ثوم ماين أكد ذلك في حديث الشهر الماضي ، حيث ذكر أنه كان يعمل في مدينة وصفها بأنها "شيء تخطيطي كبير في المملكة العربية السعودية لا أستطيع التحدث عنه".

من بين الاستوديوهات الأخرى التي يُعتقد أنها تعمل في The Line وتم تسميتها في المعرض الممارسات الأمريكية Pei Cobb Freed & Partners و Tom Wiscombe Architecture و Oyler Wu Collaborative و HOK؛ استوديوهات المملكة المتحدة Adjaye Associates واستوديو Peter Cook's CHAP ؛ استوديوهات النمسا Coop Himmelb (l) au and Delugan Meissl Associated Architects ؛ والممارسة الإيطالية Studio Fuksas.

يقود تصميم المشروع النائب السابق لرئيس بلدية برشلونة أنتوني فيفيس ، وهو كبير مسؤولي التخطيط الحضري في The Line.

كان المهندس المعماري البريطاني نورمان فوستر في البداية عضوا في المجلس الاستشاري لنيوم لكنه انسحب بعد مقتل جمال خاشقجي. أكد متحدث باسم الاستوديو الخاص به ، Foster + Partners ، أن الشركة لا تعمل حاليًا في المشروع.

متى سيتم بناء نيوم؟

تعمل نيوم وفق جداول زمنية طموحة ، حيث من المقرر أن يتم بناء جزء كبير من المشروع بحلول عام 2030.

في العام الماضي ، تم الكشف عن لقطات بطائرة بدون طيار تُظهر تحضير الموقع لـ The Line ، بينما أصدرت Neom مؤخرًا مقطع فيديو يظهر لمحات من التقدم على الموقع.

العنصر الأول المقرر الانتهاء منه هو جزيرة سندالة الفاخرة ، حيث يهدف مطور نيوم إلى الترحيب بأول ضيوفها في أوائل عام 2024.

ستتبع مدينة Port City Oxagon بعد فترة وجيزة ، حيث من المقرر أن ينتقل السكان الأوائل بحلول عام 2024 والجزء البري من المدينة من المقرر أن يكتمل بحلول عام 2030. تزلج