According to the World Bank, one of the greatest global challenges facing humanity is food insecurity caused by climate change and food production systems — which are responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions.
Rethinking The Future Awards 2024
First Award | Industrial (Concept)
Project Name: NEOM Agricultural Complex
Category: Industrial
Studio Name: Andre Kikoski Architect
Design Team: Andre Kikoski (Principal), Alex Carolan, Liam Harris
Area: 800,000 Square-Feet
Year: 2022
Location: The Oxagon, Saudi Arabia
Consultants: NEOM, AECOM, Van Der Hoeven, Evolve Growing Solutions
Photography Credits: N/A
Render Credits: Picksell Studio
Other Credits: N/A
The NEOM Agricultural Complex (the “Complex”) proposes an innovative response to the threat against humanity’s existence with an optimistic vision of the future of food.
The 800,000-square-foot research facility is comprised of state-of-the-art experimental agricultural buildings developed in tandem with an international team of highly specialized experts in farming and alternative modes of food production. Its stated goal is to tame the harsh environment of the Saudi Arabian desert, replacing an inhospitable climate for agriculture with cutting-edge lighting, cooling, irrigation, and harvesting technologies to provide fresh produce to nine million inhabitants of a future nearby city.
The Complex is entirely driven by carbon-neutral, net-zero, and climate-resilient strategies, embracing an array of systems and practices such as clean solar-powered energy, advanced LED horticultural growth lighting, low-impact cooling, and even robotic irrigation and harvesting to grow food in an environment where food production would otherwise be impossible.
The impressive Complex consists of a half-million-square-foot primary greenhouse, a vertical farm, a quarantine greenhouse, and a structure with a water-filled membrane roof (that mimics the cooling effect of cloud cover), as well as ancillary energy rooms, cooling towers, and support storage tanks. The NEOM Office Building is a circular structure that uses ancient principles of climate-responsive indigenous architecture. The offices are raised one story above the rocky jebel terrain to capture and direct cooling Red Sea winds into the interior planted courtyard and across the rooftop terrace amenity gathering spaces. Offering panoramic views in all directions, the Office Building will maximize productivity and collaboration for the NEOM team to further advance innovative thinking about the future of food.
The Complex invokes a sense of the future through its elevated industrial architecture. The buildings are simple geometric forms with massive areas that underscore the severity of the global food insecurity crisis and signify the immense effort required to correct it. The facades emphasize economy and functionality; they are designed with a minimalist language of horizontal reveals and vertical fins to create a sensitively scaled architectural expression that is also inviting. A palette of basic utilitarian materials – such as insulating sandwich panels, shot peened aluminum, textured corten steel paints, and precast concrete surfaces – produces an architecture with an unexpected sense of visual poetry. Celebrating the beauty of the adjacent rocky jebel and desert landscape, the vast sky above, and the boundless horizons of the Red Sea beyond, the architecture fuses into the landscape with joyful simplicity.
As temperatures continue to rise and food insecurity caused by climate change continues to increase, the Complex provides a compelling means to solve this crisis with an innovative food production system that reduces rather than increases the production of greenhouse gas emissions. The Complex is a resilient and inspiring vision for the future of food, the next generation of designers, and all of humanity.
