Saudi Gate of Vision

The Mujassam Watan Initiative, part of the Al Fozan Social Foundation, ran this competition with Buildner and asked designers for urban sculptures that express Saudi Arabia's identity, on one of two sites in the Eastern Province. We chose the Tharwa waterfront, on the Arabian Gulf between Dammam and Al-Khobar, because a work placed there gets a horizon: the city reaches the sea as a promenade full of public life, and the sea answers with one calm, unbroken line. We submitted the scheme on four boards under the title "From Roots to Horizon".

The idea starts from three elements: the people, the leadership and the rooted heritage of the nation. Each one is a line, and the three lines run in parallel, with the people to the west, the leadership to the east and the nation underfoot in the middle. They draw closer until they become one path through a gate that faces the Arabian Gulf. In the scheme, that gate is the vision of the future.

The People's Line is a kinetic wall of wind-driven mirrored rectangles. On the edge of the Gulf the panels move with a rhythm close to the waves and catch the reflections of passers-by, so the wall is completed by the people standing in front of it. The Leaders' Line runs beside it in the same form, but with satin panels that reflect less, because here leadership shows through its impact and guidance more than through its image.

In the middle, the Heritage Line opens a void in the ground under a walkable glass floor, so visitors look down at the roots of culture and tradition as they cross. At the end of the path stands the Gate of Vision, a large frame clad in perforated aluminium that becomes more transparent as it rises and fades into the horizon. Inside the frame, suspended points of light shimmer like stars, a sign of hope and ambition.

We wanted a scheme that could be built. The gate is a prefabricated steel frame, 15 m wide and 10 m high with a 12 m clear opening. It is made in the workshop and assembled on site with bolted joints only: each jamb arrives in two 5 m segments, then the 12 m head truss is lifted and bolted on top. The two kinetic walls are reinforced concrete, carrying 2.5 × 2.5 m steel frames that hold the rectangles on stainless steel pins. Materials were chosen for a marine setting: hot-dip galvanised steel with a duplex coating, 316L fixings and powder-coated aluminium cladding.

Around the gate, palms, shade, concrete seating and clear edges complete the plaza, so people use it on an ordinary day as much as for ceremonies.