Saudi Arabias Huge New University

Thanks to a massive twenty three billion dollar endowment work is now well underway on what will be one of the largest research centres in the middle-east open, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the Saudi city of Thuwal about 50 miles north of Jeddah.

Designed by oil giant, Saudi Aramco and architects HOK, it is being built by construction groups Saudi Oger and Saudi Bin Laden Group and will incorporate a sprawling campus of buildings that will accommodate a total of 20,000 people once complete.

The funding for the university has come from an endowment made by the Saudi aristocracy, with ten billion dollars coming specifically from King Abdullah himself after whom the campus takes its name.

Laid out of 9,000 acres, the campus will stretch all the way to the sea and even include the existing coral-reefs on the coast which will be preserved and turned into an underwater nature reserve that the Center for Marine and Ocean Research can take advantage of.

Much of the energy for the scheme will be generated on site with lines of wind turbines set on the edge of the desert, and a desalination plant to provide water.

Aiming at creating a luxurious academic venue rather than the stuffy old world approach, there will even be a golf course, beach club, sports centre (although notably only the men will get an outdoor swimming pool) and land set aside for residential development that will eventually turn the university into a fully functioning town.

Welcoming visitors will be an arched gateway inspired by Mashrabiya, a form of projecting wooden carved window with a complex lattice-work of patterns that will be illuminated by night providing a completely different appearance from the day time.

Another notable landmark on the campus will be Breakwater Beacon located on the edge of yacht club. Shaped like an inverted tornado, it will be hollow allowing pedestrian access with a stone honeycomb defining the look of it. As its name suggests, it is designed partly to work as a beacon and will be lit at the top day and night.

The first 250 or so students are expected to start on the campus in 2009 but this represents a little over 1% of what will be the eventual population of the place. With the scale of the endowment and the fact that only $10 billion is currently being spent on the construction, this is an academic project that will likely continue to evolve for decades.