The university is exclusively for women: 60,000 female students will study there, and another 12,000 women will work in teaching, administrative and other positions. This scale will make it the largest women's educational institution in the world. The university, made up of 15 colleges, covers all major areas of expertise.
Perkins + Will architects designed a health sciences campus, an educational medical campus, a training campus, high schools (including kindergarten groups) for the children of university students and employees, and sports facilities. In addition, their Saudi partner, Dar Al-Handasah, developed a general layout of the 800-hectare campus, administrative and residential buildings, infrastructure facilities and a monorail connecting the entire complex.
The part of the university entrusted to Perkins + Will is impressive in size: the total area of the buildings they designed is 3 million m2. The main axis of the campus runs along the north-south line: a 3-kilometer green space stretches along it, equal in length to Central Park in New York.
The key challenge for the architects was to create attractive public spaces without blank walls, where students and teachers were hidden from prying eyes. To do this, the main part of the campus is raised 6 m above ground level, so women will not be visible from the outside and can even open their faces if they wish.
Outside, the educational complex is faced with massive concrete facades, and the walls facing the courtyards are glazed and decorated with openwork screens made of fiber-reinforced concrete, reminiscent of the musharabiya lattices, traditional for Islamic architecture.
