Merrill Pastor and Colgan Architects, in association with master planners Duany Plater-Zyberk, won an invited competition to design a new central business district for the city of Dammam, Saudi Arabia. DPZ did the master plan and MPCA developed representative blocks and buildings that conformed to the high FAR’s that the developers required.

The blocks of the master plan are large and were required to be uniform multiples of ten thousand square meter parcels- that is, ten thousand, or twenty thousand or thirty thousand square meters. Large blocks were subdivided into parcels of ten thousand square meters and these parcels were separated by small private roads. The public roads are large and broad. Allowable heights generally increase toward the center of the master plan, and descending toward the perimeter where there was less control of long views (The area is still rapidly developing).

Beyond meeting the developer’s density requirements and the city’s other zoning requirements, the blocks we developed attempted to foster a level of variety that the blocks themselves could not always afford. Each block, no matter the FAR, had a range of building heights, and mid-block spaces that varied in size, shape, material and natural light. There was obviously more freedom in designing such mid-block spaces on parcels specified for lower densities, but the mid-block spaces of blocks with middling densities, and of even the skyscraper blocks, are critical to the enjoyment of the blocks.

Mid-block spaces are linked to the streets and to each other to form a secondary pedestrian and vehicular circulation system with

a smaller scale. Most of the views of this project are of either these mid-block plazas or gardens, or of points along these smaller mid-block streets.

The mid-density block has an FAR of 6 and an allowable coverage of fifty percent. The massing describes perimeter wings of five to twelve stories- the height on a given exposure a function of the size of the street width. Two towers- of different heights, orientations, and wall treatments- are located so they don’t block each other’s views or those views of towers in adjacent blocks.

There are three courtyards, also each of differing size, shape, and section. These courtyard gardens run between and among a series of ground floor retail spaces and residential lobbies. Low rise mid- block wings have double garden exposures to offset their lack of exposure to the streets. Even the upper residential units of the towers benefit from the courtyards.

The FAR for the low density blocks are 3.5 to 4.0. As noted, the lower FAR provides for more freedom in the accommodation of mid-block spaces. Coverage in these blocks is a low forty percent, more or less mandating large mid-block squares and plazas. The plazas were designed to be second frontages.

Both low and mid-density blocks can have their parking requirements met with one or two levels of sub grade parking. Residential units throughout average a generous 150 square meters.