Saudi Arabia plans to create a new city in the desert between the borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. A project as ambitious “as the pyramids of Egypt”, (this is what Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam asked his officials and employees of NOSthe company that plans to carry out the one that will be the city of the future.
A city projected in just two buildings arranged in parallel. They will be two buildings of monumental dimensions of 487 meters high that will be distributed over more than 120 kilometers through desert terrain, coast and mountains.
The city will have only 200 meters wide, 170 kilometers long and 500 meters above sea level.
The so-called city of the future will bear the name TheLine. The bases on which its construction is based is that this city will be a maximum of six hours of flight from 40% of the world. With a very close access to nature, the one that will be found between the two buildings and the one outside of these (with desert, mountain and sea). In the city the temperature will be 10 degrees cooler than outside, it will have the rest of 20 mj/m² of perennial solar resources and in the new city, the energy used will be 100% renewable.
Another of the key points of this project is that this city wants to ditch cars altogether and the design bets on mobility solutions based on high speed and autonomous cars, although at the moment it is not specified that they are going to bet on flying taxis or drones or magnetic levitation trains, although it is explained that the public transport system will have great relevance, claiming that you can go from one end of the city to the other in less than half an hour.
Two skyscrapers wider than tall
The monumentality of the buildings will be lightened by their glazed and mirrored cladding. This territory aspires to become home to 9 million people (forecast about nine million inhabitants).
The buildings will have hotels and residences, and vertical farming will be implemented to grow vegetableswhich will be harvested and packaged autonomously and transferred to community dining rooms and convivial kitchens, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner for residents, who would pay a subscription.
Plans also include a stadium and a marina for luxury yachts. The value of the skyscrapers would be around billion Dollars, and are designed by US-based Morphosis Architects, and involve at least nine other design and engineering consultants.
As for dates, the Saudi prince explained that both the skyscrapers and the city itself should be tackled in stages, and that development could take fifty years
The sustainability
The huge metropolis that the Saudi authorities have among their plans is designed to prioritize technology, vertical farming and one hundred percent renewable energy sources. Seen that way, it doesn’t sound bad.
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