Jabal Omar Development Project | Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Jabal Omar development:

The Jabal Omar development project is a new luxury hotel and serviced apartments complex in the heart of Makkah. Inspired by traditional Arab architecture, its design reinterprets the traditional dense building clusters, creating a new contemporary vernacular that respects its sacred location.

The new mixed-use development will provide hotel accommodation, commercial/retail spaces, car parking spaces, public spaces and public amenities to support religious, social and commercial activities to Hajj and Umrah pilgrims.

Located over the Jabal Omar mountain, to the West of the Grand Haram, it will create a new gateway along the route to the Grand Mosque.

The Jabal Omar Development is made of 40 high-rise buildings, built in 7 phases. The construction works started in 2011, some buildings are already completed and in operation, while others are still under construction.

A theoretical lifespan study:

Sixense was contracted by the project owner to perform a comprehensive engineering study aiming at determining whether or not the lifespan of the buildings of the whole complex would exceed 85 years.

A large number of buildings issues worldwide are due to damage of the steel reinforcement. Reinforced concrete durability, and therefore the lifespan of a building, is related to its composition, to the construction parameters and to its direct environment. The concrete parameters will impact its physical characteristics and will affect its capability to limit the penetration of damaging aggressive agents.

Sixensemission consisted in a comprehensive study of the structural drawings for the whole complex, the project environment and the design concrete formulae. An aging model was defined, and the project parameters input. The theoretical service life was then provided to the Client.
On-site investigations were also proposed in order to verify the service life and confirm the theoretical expectation.