Before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman direct authorities to develop land in the kingdom’s arid northwest, he want something as big as Egypt’s pyramids.
While urban planners came with in response are plans for the world’s largest structure which are two buildings up to 1,600 feet tall, running parallel for 75 miles in a line across coastal, mountain and desert terrain, connect via walkways, according to hundreds of pages of confidential planning documents that lay out the idea for the first time in detail.
This big project will known as the Mirror Line which builds on a previous announcement by Prince Mohammed of plans to create a linear community and is expect to cost up to a trillion dollars and can hold about five million people when fully complete, as per people aware of the plan and the documents.
Saudi Arabia’s Plan to Build a Skyscraper That Stretches for 75 Miles
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A high-speed train will run under the mirror buildings, as per the documents.
To feed its residents, the project plans vertical farming integrate into the buildings.
For entertainment, the Mirror Line plans a sports stadium up to 1,000 feet above the ground.
It will also boast a marina for yachts that lies underneath an arch in the two buildings.
The Mirror Line is one of a series of high-profile projects that make up Neom, a development the size of Massachusetts conceive by Prince Mohammed to diversify the kingdom’s economy from its reliance on oil.
Own by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Neom wants to attract foreign investment and create thousands of new jobs.
As raising significant foreign interest and cash has hard so far, with many Western countries and companies boycotting the kingdom and Prince Mohammed, due to Riyadh’s record on human rights following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in 2018.
That boycotting by the West end after last week’s high-profile summit between Prince Mohammed and U.S. President Joe Biden, potentially paving the way for more foreign investments to come into Neom.
The kingdom is also enjoying windfall revenue from high oil prices, which has allow Prince Mohammed to go ahead on ambitious projects such as Mirror Line aim at turning his country into one of the world’s top destinations, although plans for the project could still change.
If Saudi Arabia succeeds in building it, the structure would be like nothing else in the world.
It is already challenging the urban planners who are designing it.
They are facing a 2030 completion deadline impose by the prince’s national transformation plan and must resolve many questions, like how to manage the migration of millions of birds across corridors that the Mirror Line will intersect.
An initial impact assessment of the Mirror Line produce in January 2021 said the development would have to be construct in stages and could take 50 years.
Neom employees in the document raise concerns that people might avoid living in a high-rise environment following the pandemic and that the sheer size of the structure would alter the dynamics of groundwater flow in desert wadis and restrict the movement of birds and other many animals.
The Mirror Line designs are remember of the go-go property era ahead of the global financial crisis in neighboring Dubai, a city Prince Mohammed has praise for the speed and the ambition of its development.
As emirate built the world’s tallest tower at 2,700 feet, a palm-shape island of villas and apartments, and an archipelago construct to resemble the world map.
But as in Dubai, not all of the plan developments in Saudi Arabia will necessarily be complete.
During the last oil boom, Saudi Arabia plan the world’s tallest skyscraper, but later put on hold.
Neom already has going through master plans and a going of foreign employees frustrate at the pace of development and the management culture.
The Mirror Line is design by the U.S.-base Morphosis Architects, founded by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Thom Mayne, and involves at least nine other design and engineering consultants, including Montreal-based WSP Global and New York’s Thornton Tomasetti, among many others.
They propose building it in stages by creating 2,600-foot-long structures that will connect along a line, with varying heights up to 1,600 feet, higher than the Empire State Building.
If Mirror Line fully complete, it will run from the Gulf of Aqaba and bisect a mountain range that extends alongside the coast.
It will continue east through a mountain resort and complex housing Saudi Arabia’s government to an “aerotropolis” in the desert plains, as per planning documents say.
The entire 105-mile linear plan is known as The Line.
It is a concept that has interest urban planners for more than a century.
In 1882, Spanish architect Arturo Soria y Mata propose building an elongate urban development that inspire the “Ciudad Lineal” district of Madrid.
Prince Mohammed first unveile his idea for a linear city, with no cars and zero pollution, in January 2021.
In a video, he said the idea as an evolution in human achievement, akin to the discovery of penicillin and the moon landing, and a way to save lives lost to pollution and traffic accidents.
Prince Mohammed said in the video :
“The Line is a project that is a civilizational revolution that puts humans first,”.
As yera before, Neom face criticism from human-rights groups for forcibly moving tribes from the land, leading to security forces shooting dead a resident.
In the video, Prince Mohammed said that The Line aim to allow one million residents to meet daily within a five-minute walk and to travel end-to-end in 20 minutes.
This project would be power by renewable energy and protect nature in the untouch northwest, with details to follow, Prince Mohammed said.
Urban planners initially envisage communities dot along The Line.
But in a private meeting, the Prince Mohammed told people working on The Line to think boldly about the architecture, saying “I want to build my pyramids,”.
Urban planners have to think about how to increase the population of The Line to up to six million, including up to five million inside the Mirror Line buildings, as per the documents.
To feed people, vegetables will be “autonomously harvest and bundle” and move into “community canteens” and “co-living kitchens,” as per documents show.
Residents will pay a subscription to be serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.
One of the biggest challenges for this structure made of two tall buildings running parallel to each other is the shade create.
Lack of sunlight could be detrimental to health, as per documents.
The development also faces one challenge unique among construction worldwide, the curvature of the Earth.
Because the earth arches about 8 inches per mile, as per the documents, designers propose leaving a gap at the top of the 2,600-foot modules to “bend” the structures around the world.
SOURCE : The Wall Street Journal
