Green Riyadh Saudi Arabia Public Realm Wayfinding

The Green Riyadh project will contribute in increasing the per capita share of green space, and raise total green spaces through planting trees around all city features and facilities as well as in all its provinces. All of the greening will be watered by recycled water from an irrigation network. The greening initiative will lead to improved air quality and reduced temperatures in the city. As a consequence, this project will encourage Riyadh citizens to follow a healthy lifestyle which is part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.

At the core of the exercise is establishing enhanced green spaces across Riyadh. Under the auspices of RCR this program is envisaged to beckon a new paradigm in the Kingdom’s greening initiatives towards improving liveability in the cities.

The program aims to strategically increase the quality and quantity of all soft landscape in both urban and suburban settings. It will develop a strategically planned interconnected network of natural and semi-natural open space with environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem benefits.

Responding to the signage guidelines and taking into consideration the client’s broader aspirations for the project, our approach was one with the ethos of the core project mandate.

To achieve a navigational outcome that will assist all stakeholders in meeting the unique requirements for Green Riyadh, we developed a robust signage system that was made of as few components as possible that would be constructed from robust and hard wearing materials in order require the lowest amount of maintenance.

Taking this approach one step further we envisioned a truly unique signage system that would grow with the park and become a living element within the green space by allowing the raw materials to purposely patinate over time as the signage ages, while green planting emerge from frame the embedded planter boxed within the sign frame.

Our minimalist design approach sees pre cast concrete footings paired with simple steel frames with large open spaces to reveal as much of the green space as possible. The careful use of complimentary materials combine to provide a visually appealing suite of signs that are not only a great fit for the surrounding environment but are hard wearing and robust enough to survive the scorching summers of the Middle East.

Spread across 48 individual parks, covering several hectares of green space, our dual language navigation system also features a series of walking, orientation maps across different formats and interpretive signs that highlight the featured plantings across the parks as well as provide cultural and local area information.