Makkah governor Prince Khalid Al-Faisal, wants to be the first to book an accommodation in Saudi Arabia’s megaproject The Line.
Prince Khalid expressed his interest in a Twitter post, following his visit to the much-awaited NEOM exhibition, which is held at the Jeddah superdome.
The governor toured the exhibition, which highlighted various architectural marvels of the city, and added the megacity will help address critical challenges in the environment.
The exhibition ran from August 1 to August 14, and will be staged in other Saudi cities, including the Eastern Province and Riyadh, at later dates.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier unveiled details of the vertical city located within the Kingdom’s NEOM megaproject.
The project has garnered online attention from the world over, mostly because of its unique design – which is based on Zero Gravity Urbanism.
The Line will see two parallel skyscrapers, with mirrors on its façade that stretch for 170 kilometres.
“The designs revealed today for the city’s vertically layered communities will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a statement.
The crown prince added the project “will tackle the challenges facing humanity in urban life today and will shine a light on alternative ways to live.”
The space between the buildings, which are 500 metres above sea level, will be 200 metres wide.
The city’s design will be completely digitised, and the construction industrialised to a large degree by significantly advancing construction technologies and manufacturing processes.
The project aims to accommodate a minimum of 9 million residents “on a footprint of 34 square kilometres,” the NEOM website said.
The Line will not have streets, cars, and emissions, and will instead have a high-speed rail with an end-to-end transit of 20 minutes.
The crown prince claims residents will be able to reach all daily needs within a five-minute walk in “The Line,” where public parks and pedestrian areas, schools, homes and places for work are “layered.”
The buildings would be “different heights as you go,” adapting to the landscape, with their final size determined by engineering considerations and the terrain, NEOM chief executive office Nadhmi Al-Nasr said.
Saudi Arabia’s $500 billion megacity is also set to create 380,000 jobs in the nation.
Once completed the carbon emission-free city aims to contribute almost $48 billion to the Saudi economy.
The Line will run on 100 percent renewable energy and prioritise people’s health and well-being over transportation and infrastructure as in traditional cities.
It puts nature ahead of development and will contribute to preserving 95 percent of NEOM’s land.
The announcement of the project’s designs is a continuation of NEOM’s progress in the development of its flagship projects such as OXAGON, its reimagined manufacturing and innovation city, NEOM said in a statement.
TROJENA, its global mountain tourism destination that will offer the Arabian Gulf’s first outdoor skiing; as well as the launch of two of NEOM’s subsidiaries: ENOWA, its energy, water and hydrogen company; and the NEOM Tech & Digital Company, the statement read.
“The Line is an out of the box idea,” Al-Naser said, adding “what we will present when we are ready to will be very well received, and will be viewed as revolutionary.”
The crown prince also explained “by 2050, commute durations will double. By 2050, one billion people will have to relocate due to rising CO2 emissions and sea levels. 90 percent of people breathe polluted air,” adding a transformation is required from the concept of a conventional city into that of a futuristic one.
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