Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave an interview to the Discovery Channel for a new documentary about The Line, discussing some of the earliest ideas around the design and what the project means to the Kingdom and the world.
“Since we have an empty place, and we want to have a place for 10 million people, then let’s think from scratch,” the crown prince said of the innovative design, which is under construction now in the northwest of the Kingdom.
The Crown Prince, who gave the interview in English, talked about how the design idea behind The Line came about and what it will eventually mean for Saudi Arabia.
Via Arab News:
“Since we have an empty place, and we want to have a place for 10 million people, then let’s think from scratch,” the crown prince said.
“We talked about a lot of ideas, ‘why can’t we build a circle?’” he said, recalling the first steps in the city’s design process. We can connect it with mobility and build it “slowly until it was completed for 10 million people,” the crown prince added.
After brainstorming and a competition for the best designers for ideas on how the city should look, one design option stood out.
“They provided us with cities based on the existing methods but with better solutions,” he said. Except one, who said: “Let’s turn it from a circle to a line.”
From there, the crown prince suggested a tweak that would establish The Line’s iconic look.
“The infrastructure idea is good, but when you get in it, with the 2 km width, you don’t feel it,” he said. “I told the team, ‘how about if we take those 2 km and flip it (so that it is) two towers (across) the whole line, is that going to work or will it be too massive?’”
The result: A 170-km, 200-meters-wide urban design phenomenon that will run on 100 percent renewable energy, with 95 percent of land preserved for nature — and it will be car-free.
