Preserving Abo Makhrouq Park

Landscape architects join forces to redesign one of the oldest park’s in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

ABDALLAH LABIB

PLA, ASLA, LEED AP, ENV SP, GSAS CGP, Associate at SWA Group AHMED YASSER

MSc. B (Hons). LS, PhD candidate. Sr. Urban Designer at Broadway Malyan – PhD. TU DORTMUND ESLAM ABEED

LEED, LEED AP, B (Hons). LS Senior Landscape Architect at Parsons

Abo Makhrouq Park is considered one of the oldest parks in Riyadh and was popular with the locals in the 1980s. The site consists of abandoned huge dry wells, play equipment, a water feature, and rocks, with Abu Makhrouq mountain forming a focal point in the centre. The unique shape of the mountain and the location of the park allow it to attract many of Riyadh city’s residence throughout the time.

The history of the site has a lot of nostalgia, and holds a special place in Saudi’s heart, especially since King Abdulaziz opened it in 1902 to become a private park before it was opened to the public. This mountain was called Al-Khirbeh Mountain, but later named Abu Makhrouq Mountain due to its eight-meters-diameter opening above it. This mountain was a road for commercial caravans between Riyadh and east and north of the Kingdom, where merchants used to rest before entering Riyadh city.

In May 2020, a competition was organized by Al Riyadh Municipality which was submitted on September 2020. Open to three categories of participants; consultants, work groups, and students with a total prize of 1 million SAR. More than 300 participants for all categories participated in the competition.

Three landscape architects; Abdallah Labib, Associate at SWA Group, Ahmed Yasser, a Senior Urban Designer at Broadway Malyan and Eslam Abeed, a Senior Landscape Architect

at Parsons partnered together to create a strong vision to rehabilitate the park and provide innovative ideas to integrate the mountain landscape with the surrounding community. The proposed design has been short listed as one of the top ten projects in the work group category and has received an appreciation letter for innovation in design from Riyadh municipality.

The main concept was inspired by the rich history of the site and the celebration of the historical uses and events that once happened

there. One of the most important aspects of the concept is to maintain the visibility of the mountain and integrate the site with the surrounding urban context and respond to the community needs. When complete, the park’s flexible design will allow it to host local and regional scaled events and promote a new generation of public placemaking. The team aimed to revive the old memories by preserving and renovating these elements in a new way by rehabilitating the planters, water features, and steps in the mountain and promoting the pedestrian circulation. Abo Makhrouq Park celebrates the history of the site and its unique existing landscape. The park’s flexible design aims to engage visitors with diverse activities and amenities and to be a place to host local and regional scaled events and to attract more visitors. Both commercial and recreational uses were considered including children’s playgrounds and sports fields.

Circulation and connectivity were one of the most important design principles to connect all people and activities to the top of the mountain. Therefore, a circle bridge was proposed starting from the park’s ground level to the highest point of the point where pedestrians can reach. The purpose of adding the bridge is not only to connect people from the ground level to the top of the mountain but also to use the bridge as a viewing point with seating areas overlooking the surrounding areas in Riyadh. The softscape design includes a botanic garden around the proposed water body next to the mountain, which adds as a buffer around the sports playground, providing an open flexible lawn area that could accommodate various events. The team also propose applying Xeriscape in some areas of the park to consider the water demand to match the design of the desert experience area.

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