The Ministry of Housing (MOH) in Saudi Arabia is developing housing projects in various parts of the Kingdom, aiming to increase market supply of housing units for the middle class in high growth areas, and facilitate access to home ownership by offering citizens free land and easy loans to build homes.  

Omrania, a leading architecture and planning consultancy, was engaged in a USD 250 million contract for the design and site-supervision of 27 new residential communities, with a total land area of 45 million sqm.  

Our expert (pre-LUGARIT), Nihad Alamiri, was contracted by Omrania to deliver the following services: 

• Land-use programming for MOH projects, including: compiling regulations of various Ministries into one set of rules, and setting a system for calculating targeted and achieved land-use. 

• Formulating planning guidelines that combine local regulations and international best practices. 

• Leading the work to prepare the Building Code and Urban Design Guidelines for new homes to be developed in MOH projects.  

• Participating in the design of road standards. 

• Developing a point- based system for evaluating concept master plans.  

• Reviewing the Masterplan design of 7 housing projects (total combined area of 5.5 million sqm) 

• Designing the master plan of the MOH’s pilot project in Al-Hinakiyah city (500,000 sqm in area), including: 

  • Designing the master plan from the programming phase to detailed design phase, and managing and coordinating the multidisciplinary team of designers and engineers working on the project.  

  • Supervising the team working on planning-related drawings and reports.  

• Designing the Masterplan concept of the project in Asafan city (1.5 million sqm in area).

• Leading the team working on the design of the MOH projects' marketing communications package, including: 3D rendering and animation, brochures, press releases, magazines, reports, presentations, website, signs, billboards, and advertisements.  

• Presenting progress of work to government and MOH officials, including the Minister and deputies

The residential communities were designed to provide residents with practical homes within a livable and pedestrian-friendly environment with comprehensive services, attractive public realm, sustainable infrastructure, and efficient car traffic.  

The MOH will develop the projects’ site infrastructure and landscaping, while residents will build their own houses with the help of government loans.  Residents can choose to build one of the pre-designed villa prototypes (in that case the MOH will provide complimentary construction documents), or design and the build bespoke homes.  The MOH will put in effect Guidelines for the design, approval, and construction of bespoke houses.  Other ministries will develop and operate (or tender to private sector) various services; i.e. kindergartens, schools, health points, mosques, police and civic defence centres.  Retail will be offered for private investment.