Hues of Al'Ula

Residential · Private house

2022 · sP+a

With Sadhvi Vanjare and Sudarshan Venkatraman

Hues of Al'Ula is a farm dwelling in the Cultural Oasis of Al'Ula, a landscape that holds 200,000 years of human activity. Set beneath the palm canopy, within reach of canyons, rock formations, and open desert plains, the house is designed as a series of windows to the horizon, a sanctuary that keeps its residents aware of the colours and hues that have defined Al'Ula for millennia.

Respectful of the oasis's living rural heritage, the house draws on the dispersed mud walls of the Cultural Oasis while remaining almost invisible beneath the dense palm canopy. Rising from the ground like a landscape of dunes, it blurs the line between indoor and outdoor, landscape and architecture, and treats every room as a picture frame onto its surroundings and their history.

The plan takes its orientation from the hues around it, from the palm grove and the dunes at sunset to the sandstone outcrops, the canyons at dusk, and the night sky over the carved tombs. Lighter hues line the public wing and darker hues the private one, and circulation deliberately runs against the sun's path. The studies around the wheel map access, sun path, views, and tree cover on the plot, E-4.

A Each programme occupies its own arm around a central oasis of water and green, turned towards its own view, so no room ranks above another. B The arms are sunk into the ground, keeping the house to a single storey beneath the palms while gaining larger volumes inside. C Vaulted openings cap each arm, widest at the ends and tapering towards the courtyard. D Repeated along the inner edge, they form an undulating roof that lets the landscape flow in.

The radial plan is distorted to form a public wing and a private wing, with the courtyard and pool between them; services sit in pockets within the undulating walls. As in traditional Saudi homes, the entrance is given the longest arm, and every room is reached in one progression around the courtyard. Hot air escapes through the courtyard, tempered by the pool and planting, and with the sunken earthen walls this keeps the living spaces naturally cool.

The entry and drawing room take the largest arm of the public wing, so guests can be hosted apart from the rest of the house. The other rooms gather around the courtyard and the free-form pool, with verandahs at the junctions of the arms behind large fluted facades. The thick walls widen at these junctions to hold the walk-ins and bathrooms, leaving the arms themselves for living. The section shows the house set into the ground beneath the palms.

Rooted in the region's earthen heritage, the roof follows two precedents, TECLA, a house 3D printed from local earth by Mario Cucinella Architects and WASP, and Striatus, the printed bridge by ZHA and the Block Research Group that stands in compression alone. A Thick walls encase the main rooms. B They widen to house the supporting spaces. C A vault of 3D printed mud panels caps each arm. The cutaway shows 01 ground, 02 mud and sandstone walls, 03 mud and lime plaster, and 04 lime and palm fibre insulation.

Inside, the openings are largest at the ends of the arms, giving each room an almost uninterrupted view of the horizon and its landmarks, while the spaces grow more intimate towards the centre. An outer layer of lime and palm fibre insulates the roof, and mud and lime plaster lines every interior, so the house reads as carved from the ground. The verandahs by the pool become private pockets to gather in, by day and under the night sky.

Drawings and views

• The pool court beneath the vaulted earthen roofs
• Radial organisation, A to D, from arms to undulating vaults
• The living room under the vault, a bedroom framing the canyons, the verandah at night
• The hues of the site, with zoning, circulation, sun path, and views
• The vaults at night and at dusk, rising from the ground like dunes
• The vaults at night and at dusk, rising from the ground like dunes
• Zoning, circulation, and climatic strategy
• Plan and section within the palm grove, rooms keyed under the plan
• Printing the roof, from panelled modules to the construction sequence
• Plan of the radial rooms around the courtyard and pool
• The living room under the vault, a bedroom framing the canyons, the verandah at night
• The living room under the vault, a bedroom framing the canyons, the verandah at night