The UNESCO World Heritage site of At-Turaif has been given a sympathetic lighting scheme from Speirs Major Light Architecture, that magically transports visitors back in time to the 15th century.

In the desert to the northwest of Riyadh, on a raised site at the edge of the ad-Dir’iyah oasis, lies At-Turaif – an ancient, labyrinthian city that dates back to the 15th century.

Regarded as one of the more important political and historical sites in Saudi Arabia, At-Turaif represents the “capital of Saudi dynasty”, was the original home of the Saudi royal family, and the country’s first capital from 1727 until Ottoman control of the area in the mid-1800s.

Now, the historical district, characterised by its Najdi architectural style, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and has been subject to an extensive restoration programme that aims to transform the space into an open museum, showcasing its rich history.

As part of this ongoing restoration, Speirs Major Light Architecture (SMLA) was brought into the project, with the goal of bringing the epic scale and historical significance of the district to life after dark through a beautifully layered and nuanced tapestry of golden light.

Through a rich, amber, “apricot” light, the lighting designers hoped to articulate the stories hidden in the layers of buildings, courtyards, and architectural remnants across the near 10,000sqm site, capturing and reflecting the site’s extraordinary spirit, and creating a remarkable experience of a living national monument.

Speaking to arc, Keith Bradshaw, CEO and Senior Partner at SMLA, reflects on the unique atmosphere of the space: “We’ve never done anything quite like this before, because it isn’t just a building, it’s a small city. The story of the place is one of its most poignant aspects, because in and of itself, it is a ruin, but as with most ruins, there is a mythology and a certain spirit to the place. It is a site that is potent with atmosphere.

“As a piece of architecture, and as a place, it is imbued with something – not to compare it to Stonehenge, but it has that kind of spiritual energy, and because of that it is precious. The opportunity to create the after-dark experience of such a special and significant site is a rare honour. As a practice, we have been fortunate enough to work on several exceptional sites, including the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, and the Dom Tower in Utrecht. Our learning from those projects helped to inform our approach at At-Turaif. We are fascinated by the stories and memories that live within these unique places, and how we can use light as a narrative tool to draw them out, creating a meaningful connection between people, place, and architecture.”

Bringing the stories and historical significance of the site to life was a central focus of SMLA’s “thought piece” for At-Turaif – a narrative document that delved into the overall concept of the lighting scheme, requested by the Diriyah Company, the project client.

“We started by thinking about the way that light could amplify the story of the place, as much as we understood at that early stage, how we could bring this remnant of a civilisation back to life. We wanted to use light to show the spirit of what was there.”

While Bradshaw and the SMLA team understood the history of the site from the outset, it wasn’t until they walked among the ancient walls of the city that they began to fully appreciate the significance and regard with which the Saudi people held At-Turaif.

“What really brought it to life for me was when we walked around the site with a few of the tour guides, who told us the stories of what would have happened on various sites, the economy of the city, and how it worked. As with most heritage projects, the more you can understand or empathise with the people that lived there and how it operated, the more inspiring it becomes.

“We could see that it really meant a lot to the Saudi people too. By talking to them, we got a sense for how significant a project it was for them.”

Coupled with the strong cultural weight of the project, the client also had some very stringent expectations for the lighting design. To meet these, SMLA created an incredibly detailed plan of the site, using a LIDAR scan of the city, into which the team added the various textures, tones and shadows.

Bradshaw continues: “It was a very sophisticated visualisation, way beyond anything that we had done before. Once we had this pure, three-dimensional, textured model of the project, we could set the viewing angles exactly as the client wanted and show them how it would look up close, from two-kilometres away, five-kilometres away, and so on. It was an amazingly detailed concept.

“Our job then, beyond the concept, was to bring that into being with real light, real tones, real textures. We created a scheme where, from these distances, the elevations look amazing, but also, when you’re actually in the place, walking the streets, you become really immersed in it. It becomes this timeless space that feels as it did 500 years ago.

“You can create amazing images with light – subtle layering between one surface and the next. When you are looking at is effectively 20, 30, or 40 façades together, you have to find a balance, and so much of this project was about finding the appropriate three-dimensional balance.

“It was very challenging to ensure that what looks beautiful from afar, also feels beautiful when you are there. That when you are walking down those streets you feel the magic of the space.”

The rough materiality of the handmade, mud-brick walls throughout the city contributes a great deal to the ambience. Described by Bradshaw as a “gift” to graze with light, the walls of At-Turaif exemplify the rich history and story of the space. SMLA therefore, along with the client, wanted to find the perfect colour temperature to showcase this unique aspect of the site further.

“The first time we went there, it was sunset, and it was spectacular. We were immediately enchanted by this very particular, almost sand putty material, with a very fine grain texture. We’ve never lit anything quite as freeform and imperfect as that before.

“As soon as we saw that tone of sunset begin to hit the surfaces, it just popped, it resonated. It was like the space was telling us, ‘This is the light that I look good in’. That’s where this specific warm, rose gold, apricot light came from. It is right at the edge of a monochrome light where you feel that you are enveloped in an intense golden glow.”

Iain Ruxton, Associate Partner at SMLA, explains the painstaking process that the lighting designers went through before reaching this particular tone of light: “There was a lot of experimentation at the beginning of the project, when we did a large-scale mock-up to sell the idea to the client. At that point, we had enough lights installed where we could play around with colour and find the right combination. It took quite some extensive playing around before we found a solution that we were happy with, to then take to the client.

“Colour is an interesting thing, as although the site is relatively homogenous in terms of material, there is still quite a lot of variation. The mix of light that gives you the right colour on one wall doesn’t necessarily look right on another, because it is a slightly different colour. There’s more subtlety in it than you might think, from finding the right colour points and getting the client agreement, to walking in around the site, checking the levels and colours of each fixture and finetuning them. It’s not a theatre stage; there’s nowhere you can stand and see everything. Every single light was personally visited and focused. It was an incredibly fine grain of focusing effort that we had to do – a really complicated site to get focused up and programmed properly.”

Indeed, the placement of the luminaires themselves – around 2,500 Martin Professional fixtures – was integral to the success of the lighting scheme, and in creating the magical glow that SMLA desired.

“It was very important to remove the 21st century as much as possible,” says Bradshaw. “We wanted the light to feel like it was coming from the buildings and the walls themselves, which meant that we had to be very clever. Most of the luminaires are on the ground, so it feels like the city is glowing from the bottom up – and it is done in a very discreet way, with appropriately concealed fittings.”

“The fixtures have double casements, and are semi-recessed into the gravel that lies between the heritage wall, which we could not touch at all, and the street itself,” adds Adrien Flouraud, Design Associate at SMLA. “The gravel acts as drainage, as during the rainy season the site is susceptible to flash flooding, so we had to be sure that our casements were fully drainable as well. The luminaires from Martin are very robust and can handle this very well. From the 47° heat to the flash flooding, the amount of failure or return we have seen is absolutely minimal.

“But nothing is fixed anywhere, almost everything is only held in place by gravity, there are no screws, no drilling, nothing.”

A site of this scale, with such a high number of luminaires, called for a large-scale, extensive control network – something that could have been a challenge given the sensitivity and remote nature of the site. However, Ruxton says that establishing the control network was more straightforward than first expected: “We were quite lucky with the amount of electrical infrastructure and IT networks that were already on-site. There was a sitewide, high-capacity fibre optic network around the site already, with many small technical rooms around the site servicing the existing security camera network, cafés, point of sale, and so on. Luckily, we were able to reuse this network.

“There is one control system, but it is distributed through a number of controllers that are networked together. It all runs on Pharos, and the way that Pharos works means that it scales very well – you can put multiple controllers together and once set up, it all behaves as one. This gave us a bit more resilience and helped us a lot in the stage-by-stage commissioning.”

The control network is also flexible enough to factor in further expansion, as the recovery and restoration of At-Turaif continues.

“The whole city as you see it now is 95% complete, and there are potentially more bits and pieces to come in the future as more of the site continues to be rediscovered,” explains Bradshaw. “There is an ambition over the coming years to reveal more of the archaeology, as there is still a huge amount to be discovered. This is going to be fascinating for us to continue thinking about lighting on the other areas of the project.

“Factoring in the future development around the site we needed to look at not only the visitor experience, but also the views,” adds Flouraud. “We know that there will be further residential developments on the nearby wadi, so we have created scenes that are ready for this. Nobody can see them now, but effectively in our designs they are ready. There are some people who, in five year’s time, are going to be living in homes that don’t exist yet but when they move in they will find they get an amazing view every night.”

While the core focus of the lighting scheme is on the rich, warm amber lighting, the design also includes a special activation that reflects the importance of the lunar calendar in the Muslim faith. Each month, celebrating the new moon, the lighting shifts to a shade of blue externally, with the warm light remaining within. “The resonance of those opposites of silver against amber is just beautiful,” says Bradshaw.

Finding the perfect shade of blue for the ‘Full Moon’ scenario took another several rounds of finetuning and reviewing until all parties were satisfied, but the result creates a remarkable contrast. Flouraud continues: “When you shift to the Blue Moon theme, there is a real ‘village’ feel of what is inside the walls, contrasting with the outer façade. We had to be very precise to be sure that the inside walls were at the right level and not overlit compared to the outer walls. It was a lot of tuning between all these internal and external elements.”

The efforts that SMLA have gone to in illuminating At-Turaif have resulted in a scheme that beautifully showcases this landmark structure. In its raised position, the site is the major focal point in the landscape when viewed from the developing Diriyah Project across Wadi Hanifah. Balancing the external identity and the views and experience within the monument is at the heart of the design, and this is something that Ruxton feels has been successfully realised.

“Of course, it needs to look amazing when viewed from outside the site, but it also needs to be amazing to be inside and to wander about and experience it. These two quite different objectives that are not the easiest things to balance, but I think in the end we were very successful at that. We think it looks great, everybody else seems to think that it looks great; almost as importantly, it feels great. If you are in it and walking around exploring it, it feels magical at night, so I think we’ve done it justice in that respect.”

Bradshaw adds that the cultural significance of the space, and how the lighting adds to this, is what stands out to him. “It’s a real privilege to be able to work on a national monument that means so much to people.

“What I am most proud of is that when we talk to the Saudi people that were briefing us about the spiritual feel and importance of the place, they say that when you are there, it feels like we brought that to life. The people that I felt really helped us to understand the brief properly have said to us that it is exactly what they wanted us to create, and that it makes them feel very emotional, which is something that people don’t often express in our world of architectural lighting; it is not just clever, it is emotional, which is very special.”

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