Qiddiya - A New Capital of Entertainment

Qiddiya Investment Company appointed ByrneLooby as the lead geotechnical consultant to provide geotechnical support for the proposed development in Qiddiya.

The Qiddiya masterplan shows that the entire resort will be integrated into the natural terrain of the area, meaning that besides rock mass stability, these futuristic structures will be subjected to severe wind loads, uplift and shearing, which will require deep foundations that resist the large lateral and vertical pull-out loads. They will also require special foundations to evenly spread the loads to prevent forces from placing tension onto the fractured rock system on the cliffs. Our role included identification and detailed requirements for tests and investigations by plot, preparation of the required tender documents, review of technical & commercial submissions, and providing any additional support which was required. The challenging ground conditions needed extensive field explorations and state-of-the-art in-situ large-scale pile and drilled pier load tests, laboratory testing, data analysis and evaluation, that developed the rock properties data to be used in designing foundations on the cliffs. As the lead Geotechnical Consultant, our scope included the provision of specifications, drawings, BOQs for pricing and monitoring works during construction, and GIS drawings and data.