Gulf Construction Online

Kuwait

An artist’s perspective of the Burj Mubarak Al Kabir.

1001-m dream

01 December 2007

A significant milestone has been crossed on the estimated KD25 billion ($86 billion) Madinat Al Hareer – also known as City of Silk – a multi-purpose economic, commercial and residential development in Subiya with the approval of its development plans by the Kuwait Municipal Council last month.

The one-of-its-kind development will be home to the world’s tallest tower at 1,001 m, the Burj Mubarak Al Kabir and will also include a 2-sq-km natural desert reservation, a duty free area, a new airport, tourism-oriented establishments and business centres.
“We are thrilled that the Kuwait Municipal planning council has decided to approve our masterplan for the City of Silk and we look forward to advancing the design work in the coming year,” John Holden, project architect at Eric Kuhne & Associates, tells Gulf Construction.
Eric Kuhne & Associates is the architect and masterplanner behind the entire development, which aims to transform a 250 sq km site in Subiya in northern Kuwait, into a new urban centre for 700,000 people within the next 25 years. The first phase of the project is expected to take shape within seven years.
The multi-purpose city, owned by the government firm Madinat Al Hareer Corporation, seeks to create a major new city in a strategic location at the
gateway to the famous Silk Route across central Asia.
“Madinat Al Hareer is far greater than another waterfront, another tower block, or another retail centre. It is founded on the rich heritage of Arabic gardens, towns, palaces, and markets. It balances Centres of Faith with Centres of Commerce as a rich garden city on the Arabian Gulf,” says a spokesman for Eric Kuhne.
Atkins is the structural engineer for the Mubarak Al Kabir Tower which will form ‘a complete city in the sky’, including offices, apartments, a school, a medical centre, and possibly a mosque. It will be built in three blocks linked together, which will give it more flexibility in terms of the lifts. Towering more than 200 storeys high, the twisting, tapering tower will create a vertical community made up of seven neighbourhoods stacked one atop another.
“The plans for Madinat Al Hareer involve significant new infrastructure, including a new seaport and an international airport, to support an integrated urban masterplan in the form of a series of centres dedicated to business, sports, culture, environment, media, industry, education and health,” says a spokesman for Atkins. “Adherence to high environmental standards and the principles of sustainability are themes that will drive the design and the result will be a spectacular new multi-purpose city, linked to Kuwait City by the new Jaber Al Ahmed bridge across Kuwait Bay. Halfway across the bay, the bridge will alight on two islands that will contain exclusive private developments.
Madinat Al Hareer will include a resort, a 200-hectare desert preserve, a total of 28 lifestyle communities as well as a free zone.
The city will also feature a business city and an area for forums and exhibitions, centres dedicated to sports, culture, environment, media, industry, education and health. It will include tourism centres, hotels, resorts, public gardens, spacious residential areas.
The mega city project involves collaboration between the private sector, researchers, designers, engineers and the agencies responsible for the economic development and planning for the region. In addition to structural engineering, Atkins is also responsible for environmental, fisheries and engineering works.
This cosmopolitan city is designed with four city centres and will include:
• Finance City: A centre of business, international trade, finance, and commerce which will expand the business potential of Kuwait and encourage new businesses to come and invest in the Middle East;
• Silk Road Free Zone: An advanced enterprise zone will be designated a free zone for trade, investment and business incubator developments. Located next to a new international airport, it will connect to an expanded rail, air and road network extending far into Central Asia;
• Leisure City: Resort hotels, leisure villages and holiday retreats will line the kilometre-long waterfront of the riverside of Madinat Al Hareer. A number of new facilities such as an athletics centre, an academy of sport, an Olympic-style sports complex that will host domestic and international games, a sports medicine and maritime lifestyle centre are also planned;
• Culture City: Split into three precincts, the culture city will be where academic, diplomatic, and policy studies will be concentrated and where scholarly research, archaeological pursuits, art and historical museums will be located.
• Ecological City: At the centre of Madinat Al Hareer will be a 45 sq km wildlife sanctuary and nature reserve park – the Al Badeia Resort – which will have a protected area for migratory birds and will be enhanced with new nesting and spawning ranges, fresh water ponds, feeding grounds, and wildlife habitats.
• Film and Media City: An expanded media/internet/communications centre will be created, building on Kuwait’s creative centre for television production along with a film city geared towards creating a new Arab movie production industry;
• Industrial City: A new light industrial centre will be developed adjacent to the Advanced Enterprise Zone and Business City Centre;
• Education City: Partnerships with international educational institutions will expand the reach of Kuwait’s tertiary education system to include Asian, European and North American colleges and universities.
• Health City: The project will include advanced treatment centres, research facilities, specialised medicine and pharmacology, prevention strategy, rehabilitation and nutrition centres.
• Lifestyle zones: Each of the 28 communities of the mega project will be branded with a distinctive lifestyle on offer, which will include sport, recreation, leisure, culture, information, media, film, research, education, business and ecology.
• Housing facilities: A diversity of housing types, family amenities, self-sustaining neighbourhoods and an extensive park system.
The Madinat Al Hareer will not only create an integrated urban development for over 700,000 people but due to its strategic location, also have the potential to revive the traditional silk route of Iraq, Iran and central Asia and become a global trading and logistics hub of the Middle East, says the spokesman for Eric Kuhne.