W Riyadh – KAFD

Located in the King Abdullah Financial District, a landmark mixed-use destination in Riyadh, this new luxury lifestyle and business hotel comprises a 17-story tower, a three-story podium, and a four-story underground structure for hotel support functions and parking. The hotel features seven restaurants and lounges, more than 1,000 square meters of flexible event space, and a variety of wellness amenities, including a spa and fitness studio.

The hotel is designed as a prism-shaped tower with a nine-story opening that separates programmatic functions and allows views and light to penetrate the building's mass. The podium structure houses the hotel amenities and conference facilities and links the building to its surroundings at the pedestrian level.

Designed with an emphasis on sustainability, the project incorporates strategies such as energy modeling, daylight control, and solar shading, as well as proximity to public transit within KAFD.

The hotel sits adjacent to a wadi—a dry, manmade riverbed that serves as the district's primary pedestrian promenade—with a public square to the west. As part of the KAFD master plan guidelines, the hotel's north façade responds to the wadi with an undulating, faceted skin composed of a semitransparent aluminum-and-glass curtain wall with two layers of ceramic frits that create a moiré effect, scaling from a pedestrian-sized pattern at lower levels to a larger urban expression at full height. The south façade is largely opaque, clad in stone with rhythmically alternating horizontal slots. The tower's east and west façades feature a saw-toothed design with continuous slab edges that maximize shading from the extreme desert sun while allowing for measured light and views.