king-abdul-aziz-university: King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Planned and Designed 1980
Associated Firm- Campus Consortium Consultants
The campus of King Abdul Aziz University is located just outside the red Sea City of Jeddah, on a 1600-acre (650 ha) site, which currently contains 10,000 students in temporary buildings. The new phased, multi-disciplinary campus will ultimately contain over 17,000 students, 2000 faculty and 5800 support staff. The academic facilities are grouped in three main campuses: Men’s Campus, Men’s Health Sciences Campus and Hospital; Women’s Academic and Medical Campus. Both the Men’s and Women’s Campuses have major student residential units closely linked and integrated with the academic facilities. The other major land-use zones are residences for some 3300 faculty and staff in a variety of villa and apartment types. These are grouped around three neigbourhood centres, which in turn are related to a major community centre.
Extensive contextual research into Arabian and Islamic culture, Islamic design principles, traditional Islamic settlement organizations, indigenous social patterns and values, and climate studies were undertaken. This led to the overall organizational and massing concept: a citadel. This walled city forms a mosaic of Islamic life, each component participation equally and without segregation, contributing to a totality of urban space, but also having identifiable local districts centred around a mosque, each in balance with the whole, and focusing on the main mosque.
The major academic buildings are planned on the basis of two primary principles. First, each has a principal gateway leading to a series of landscaped and shaded courtyards around which are grouped faculty departments or, as in the case of student housing, a socially balanced group of residences and their common support facilities. Second, all major buildings are conceived as introverted and inward looking with a central pedestrian route at two levels, one totally enclosed and air-conditioned, the other outdoor.
Photo courtesy of the Erickson Collection
