Villa Hegra
AlUla, Saudi Arabia
LOOM. Weaving the SITE with reconstituted Nature: local stones, rocks, mud brick, palm and sequoia beams, and other vegetal native species growing in AlUla.
The aspiration of Villa Hegra is to echo nature on a vernacular legacy, as a dense and compact presence, in a three dimensional construction and in evocation of the marvels of AlUla Old Town.
The physical buildings are made of local materials and native species vegetation. The project calls for ABSTRACTION of Nature as a pixelization of the Scenery as seen facing the site: the oasis in the foreground and the mountain in the background.
The programme for Villa Hegra, comprising the cultural centre, the International College for Tourism and Hospitality (ICTH) and the apartment residences, is dense and requires multiple storey buildings.
As the central piece is Villa Hegra, the ICTH and the residence apartments support the main construction in visual harmony and in a similar architectural language while accommodating their specific programme requirements.
The reconstituted Nature is in itself an act of Culture, in delivering local material from the region and local vegetation species as an envelope of the complex. Our Framework plan activates all parts of the project with different and specific zones while creating them to be porous and communicative with each other.
