Renewable success : development of good architecture in the case of Arriyadh Development Authority, Saudi Arabia

ArRiyadh Development Authority (ADA) is an unusual city development authority within the Saudi Arabian government hierarchy. Part of its responsibilities is coordinating and overseeing the design and building of buildings for Ministries and other projects needed by the government. ADA has a positive reputation for achieving quality award winning architecture. Though there have been studies on the development of Riyadh, there has been no study of how quality of architecture is perceived and defined by ADA and why ADA was able to sustain a record of successful project. Investigating ADA's methods in approaching architectural projects would provide assistance to architectural firms, agencies, and scholars interested in the perception of quality architecture in Riyadh. To pursue these questions, I have interviewed 20 people who had experiences with ADA and related their input to current literature on design excellence. This study attributes the success of ADA in creating 'good' architectural projects to five elements: symbolic capital, efficiency and competence, architectural vision, adopting multi-perspectives and flexibility. The study concludes with a discussion of the future challenges facing ADA.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Alkhabbaz, Mohammed H

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mark Jarzombek.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59103

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59103