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The Diriyah Art Futures is the result of a competition organized by the Saudi Ministry of Culture within Vision 2030. Won by Studio Schiattarella Associati, the competition involved the construction of a building that combined research on digital arts, training, and the creation of exhibition, performance and recreational spaces.The design of Diriyah Art Futures unfolds horizontally, perched upon the cliff of a wadi, an agricultural depression amidst the desert plateau.The complex comprises a series of compact and austere volumes, with narrow, deep passages that create shaded and cool areas, mirroring the architectural tradition of these lands. The architects vision evokes the sense of the architecture emerging from the earth.
The DAF was to be part of a vast urban regeneration plan in the Ad Diriyah area which coexisted with a fabric of narrow streets and mud houses of the old consolidated historic center, an agricultural depression in the middle of the desert plateau and fringes of degraded suburban fabric.The project was born thinking of a complex rather than a single building to minimize the impact of the architecture on the natural landscape
Among the natural based solutions, inspired by the centuries-old confrontation between man and desert, the building also makes use of "wind towers", voids allowing the air to collect humidity, lowering the temperature of the internal rooms. In the same vein, the building recovers the use of local materials, pushing them beyond their traditional use, rammed hearth, Riyadh stone for the “brise soleil” of the cafè… The volumes that emerge overlook a vast underground area (a typological novelty in Saudi Arabia). In the underground spaces, where external conditions are eliminated and where digital studios and laboratories are concentrated, natural materials are replaced by more advanced, technological ones.
DAF is a prototype that primarily uses form, materials and spatial combinations to cope with the extraordinary conditions of the venue and programme. A spine formed by architectural monoliths, compact volumes emerging from the earth and face the temperatures and winds of the desert are distributed on the ridge that delimits the urban and agricultural areas of a wadi. DAF thus reconfigures the passage, giving a new order to the degraded man-made space, recovered, and finally reconnected with nature. At the same time, the complex distribution, the blocks form a path where voids and deep shaded areas alternate capable of lowering the temperature, creating cool and airy areas. Closed to the outside to protect from the wind and open to the inside, the building uses heat exchange to bring down the high temperatures of the desert.
We believe that today’s challenging is working on cultural distictivieness. Globalization processes are progressively flattening city-scapes and architectural languages, and as architects we have on the contrary to start from the legacy of local cultures and from an understanding the values of their roots
Schiattarella Associati is an Italian architectural design firm established in 1970 and based in Rome, Italy.
The office boasts significant experience in the design of museums and cultural facilities and adaptive re-use of existing buildings.
Our firm brings unique experience to the Design Team, qualifying it to perform a pivotal role in the successful delivery of the project.
Schiattarella associati has a great experience in designing and coordinating complex international projects in Europe, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan. The office, among others projects, has developed design for the new Rome Congress Halls, and the Seoul Metropolitan Museum, the Children Museum in Kyonggy (South Korea). Schiattarella Associati has been operating in the Gulf since 2010, designing for Arriyadh Development Authority the Celebration Hall in the Diplomatic Quarter, in Riyadh and the Addirriyah Art Center in Addirriyah.
