Street, road, and boulevard: Permeable, smart, and creative systems transforming Riyadh

Abstract. Riyadh is facing a great change in recent years. The 15-minute city to which it aspires is a model of smart city that requires a great deal of interaction between inhabitants and the urban fabric, still little present in the Saudi capital. The research starts with the consideration that one of the biggest changes in Riyadh is taking place renovating its streets. The three projects analyzed in this research, show a clear desire to re-design these infrastructures through a systematization of environmental, social, and technological aspects; the first project, for Tahlia Street’s sidewalks in 2004, was the first transformation to trigger a process of re-humanization of the city; the second, the King Abdullah Road Development Program, in progress, aims to transform one of the main east-west connection into a free road with an even greater capacity, which, instead of dividing, reconnects at a pedestrian level, the portions of the city crossed. Finally, the latest project, still in a design phase, developed by Sport Boulevard Foundation, north of the KAFD financial district, this is a linear park that will host a series of recreational services to support citizens, as well as cars and metro. All these three axes work transversally to the main south-north direction of Riyadh, defining relationships between the western and eastern areas, corresponding to the Wadi Hanifah and Wadi Al Sulai valleys. By analyzing these three projects, and understanding these consecutive steps we can deeply understand the transformative process of Riyadh. In all these projects the wadi is a source of inspiration, working like a sponge, it can self-regulate, endowing a kind of intelligence. The Wadi, and its linear development, is a creative model of Riyadh's transformation into a smart sustainable city.