KAFD Metro Station in Riyadh is one of three ZHA projects to receive 2026 World Architecture News Awards

Carrying millions of passengers every week, Riyadh Metro is the world’s longest driverless transit system—spanning 176 kilometres across 6 lines and 85 stations throughout Saudi Arabia’s capital.

The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Metro Station serves as a key interchange on the new network, with six rail platforms over four levels connecting with bus and park-&-ride services to create an important multi-modal transport hub for the city.

The KAFD Metro Station’s design prioritizes connectivity. Predicted rail, car and pedestrian traffic has been modelled, mapped and structured to optimize internal circulation and avoid congestion. The resulting configuration is a three-dimensional lattice defined by a sequence of opposing sinewaves (generated from the repetition and frequency variation of the station’s daily traffic flows), which act as the spine for the building’s circulation.

These sinewaves extend to the station’s exterior clad in ultra-high-performance concrete panels. The façade’s geometric perforations reduce solar gain as a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional environmental sheltering within the region’s vernacular architecture. The composition of the station’s façade echoes the patterns generated by desert winds in sand, where multiple frequencies and reverberation generate the complex repetition of patterns evident in the natural world.

Providing optimal comfort at minimum energy demand, the station combines effective passive design features with a high-efficiency cooling system that is powered by renewables and automatically adjusts to differing passenger levels throughout the day, while sliding door panels on each platform retain cool air within the station. The KAFD Metro Station has achieved LEED Gold certification by the US Green Building Council.

Photos by Hufton + Crow