KACST, Science City, Saudi Arabia
Years: 2011 - 2015
Value: £1.5b
Undertaken while at Battle McCarthy
Project Brief:
New-build Science City, built on a site measuring 1km sq and consisting of roughly 35 laboratories, tower and infrastructure.
Challenges:
Due to the scale of the project there were various challenges, including integration of the laboratories to sit on the plinth, addressing structural vibration within these labs and further integration with existing infrastructure, phasing plans, site boundary constraints and so on. As the location of specific equipment was not yet confirmed, the structure had to be inherently vibration-isolated, which was done with careful design of the slab itself and strategic positioning of mechanical risers.
