After winning the Jabal Omar Development Project competition, Foster + Partners will design a new luxury hotel and serviced apartment complex planned for Makkah (also known as Mecca), Saudi Arabia.
According to the London-based architecture firm, the property will be inspired by traditional Arab architecture, and the mixed-use development’s design will reinterpret the area’s dense building clusters with vertical elements tucked within a mountainous terrain. Luke Fox, head of studio and senior executive partner at Foster + Partners, said that the design sets out to create an innovative building form that will be respectful to the scale and importance of the Grand Mosque in Makkah.
The date of completion is still undetermined, as well as the name that the hotel will operate under.
All hotel guestrooms and apartment residences will have views of the Holy Kaaba, and each room will have a dedicated space for private prayer overlooking the Grand Mosque and Holy Kaaba. In addition, a pedestrian ramp connecting the main hotel towers and leading to the Grand Mosque will be integrated within the topography.
The overall 21-million-square-foot project will include a roster of five- and four-star hotels. Phases one through four, which are currently under development, are half complete, and four hotels from the project’s first phase are currently in operation. Those properties include a 484-room Hilton Suites, a 426-room Marriott hotel, a 656-room Hyatt Regency and a 438-room Conrad hotel. A new Hilton Convention hotel is also slated to debut by the end of the year.
