Riyadh Conference Centre

UDC 624 Paper to be read before the Institution of Structural Engineers at l l Upper Belgrave Street, London SW1 8BH. on Thursday 22 January 1976. Riyadh'Conference Centre and Hotel E. Happold, BSc,.CEng, FIStructE, FICE W. 1. Liddell, MA, DIC, CEng, MIStructE, MICE P. A. Woodward, CEng, MlStructE Ove Arup 8 Partners ! - Mr. Edmund Happold is the Executive Partnerof Structures 3, one of the structural divisions of Ove Arup 8 Partners. He joined Ove Arup 8 Partners, London, in 1957 as a Design Engineer After spending two years as Structural Design Engineer with working on the main structure of Sydney Opera House built in 1959. Severud, Elstad, Krueger Associates of New York, he returned to Ove Arup 8 Partners. London. He was responsible for the structural School (RIBA NE Medal 1967). Hyde Park Cavalry Barracks, engineering of Exeter University Science Buildings, Bootham British Embassy, Rome, Hoteland Conference Centres at Riyadh and Mecca (UAI competition winners), Centre Beaubourg, Paris He is a Director of the Lightweight Structures Laboratory which (winner of International open competition) and many other works member of SFB 64. the German Government-sponsored grouping Ove Arup & Partners share with Frei Otto, and a corresponding of universitiesdepartment interested in long span structures. He is a lecturer at Cambridge School of Architecture and a Member of the Council of the Institution. Mr. Ian Liddell is an Associate Partner of Structures 3, one of Fettes College, Edinburgh and St. John's College, Cambridge. the Structural Divisions of Ove Arup & Partners. Educated at he joined Ove Arup 8 Partners in 1960. After a post-graduate course at Imperial College and four years with Holst & Co. Limited. working on industrial concrete structures, he rejoined Ove Arup 8 Partners as Project Engineer in charge of the Riyadh Conference Centreand Hotel. After completion of the project he was. among other things, in charge of the renovation shell at Mannheim. He is currently in charge of the structural of two old warehouses at St. Katharine's Dock and the timber lattice an aaoining site in Riyadh. design of the new Government buildings to be constructed on The Structural Engineer/December 1975lNo. 1 Z/Volume 53 i Mr. Peter Woodward was trained under an apprenticeship with Redpath Brown from 1956-71. He joined Ove Arup 8 Partners in from 1964-65, he returned to work with Edmund Happold on 1961 as an engineer. After one year with David Smolley 8 Partners Bootham School, York, and the British Embassy, Rome. He was Project Engineer for the Hyde Park Cavalry Barracks and went on to be the Resident Engineer for this project. In 1969 he went to Riyadh in charge of the ArchitectlEngineer supervision team. He was also co-ordinator for the Conference Centre and Hotel at Mecca in its later stages. (Saudi Arabia) Limited. Synopsis As a result of an international architectural competition a Conference Centre and Hotel was designed and built in Riyadh. It was the intention that they should set new standards of building in a country which had previously been almost totally closed to theWest. This paper givesthe story of the design and construction of this building and describes the types and standards of construction which were achieved. Introduction The story dates back to 1966 when Trevor Dannatt joined a group from Ove Arup & Partners in entering for the United States Steel Bridge Competition. To be an architect in a civil engineering design group is very difficult, but Trevor Dannatt must have enjoyed it because when, immediately afterwards, he was invited to take part in a limited competition for the design of aconferencecentre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he asked us to join him. The country Arabia is an amazing country. Nearly amillion square miles in area, it has a population estimated at 6 million. Half the population are still nomads; of the rest a million are farmers. Largely desert (temperatures of 120°F in the shade are common in the summer), it produces an estimated 10 per cent of the world's oil supply. Land of Abraham and Mohammed and once the centre of an empire that stretched from Spain to India, it was broken up by the beginning of this century into a series of tribal areas. Riyadh was a small town held by a northern family, the Rashid, while the Saud family, the traditional rulers, were in He is now based in Riyadh as a Director of Ove Arup 8 Partners 51 5

Riyadh Conference Centre

Documents

Transcript of Riyadh Conference Centre