New images released of ZHA-designed KAFD Station for Riyadh Metro

New images have been revealed of Riyadh Metro's King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Station by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), a practice founded by the late Iraqi-British architect, Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, with the structure set to serve as a key interchange on the $23bn (SAR86bn) rail network in Saudi Arabia.

According to Construction Week, KAFD Staton will link Riyadh Metro's Blue Line with its Yellow Line terminus and local airport, in addition to a monorail.

With six platforms over four levels and park-and-ride facilities, the station will be a multimodal transport centre and new public space for the city, ZHA said on Instagram.

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KAFD Metro Station under construction in #Riyadh – great new photos by @binzarah. . With Riyadh’s population more than doubling since 1990 to over 5 million and expected to reach 8.5 million residents within a decade, the Riyadh Metro is a new public transit system for the city with 6 main lines covering 176 km and 85 new stations connecting with the city’s new rapid bus network. Anticipated to transport 3.6 million passengers a day by 2030, the city’s new metro system will contribute to reducing the number of car journeys throughout the city by almost 250,000 journeys every day. . KAFD Metro Station will serve as a key interchange on the new network for the Blue Line with the terminus of the Yellow Line to the airport as well as connecting with the local monorail. With six platforms over four levels and park-and-ride facilities, the station will be a multimodal transport centre and new public space for the city that is wholly integrated within the district. . The station’s design prioritizes connectivity. Predicted rail, car and pedestrian traffic across the site has been modelled, mapped and structured to optimize internal circulation and avoid congestion. The resulting configuration is a three-dimensional lattice defined by a sequence of opposing sine-waves (generated from the repetition and frequency variation of the station’s daily traffic flows) which act as the spine for the building’s circulation. These sine-waves extend to the station’s exterior. . The façade patterning reduces solar gain while geometric perforations contextualize the station within its environment. The overall composition echoes patterns generated by desert winds in sand, where multiple frequencies and reverberation generate complex repetition in natural formations. . The KAFD Metro Station is composed from a subset of elements that are highly correlated through repetition, symmetry and scale to simplify technical challenges without compromising spatial quality or design ambition. .

A post shared by Zaha Hadid Architects (@zahahadidarchitects) on Jul 10, 2019 at 5:51am PDT

Its caption for the pictures, clicked by Instagram user and photographer Faisal Bin Zarah (@binzarah), added: "The station’s design prioritises connectivity. Predicted rail, car, and pedestrian traffic across the site has been modelled, mapped, and structured to optimise internal circulation and avoid congestion.

"The resulting configuration is a three-dimensional lattice defined by a sequence of opposing sine-waves (generated from the repetition and frequency variation of the station’s daily traffic flows) which act as the spine for the building’s circulation. These sine-waves extend to the station’s exterior."

ZHA added that the station's façade patterning reduces solar gain, and its geometric perforations contextualise the station within its environment.

"The overall composition echoes patterns generated by desert winds in sand, where multiple frequencies and reverberation generate complex repetition in natural formations," its caption continued.

"The KAFD Metro Station is composed from a subset of elements that are highly correlated through repetition, symmetry and scale to simplify technical challenges without compromising spatial quality or design ambition."