Al Haram Mosque: Mecca, Saudi Arabia 2008

摘要

The number of pilgrims during the annual Muslim Hajj to Medina (Madinah) and Mecca (Makkah), the most holy sites of Islam in Saudi Arabia, is growing rapidly - a situation which demands urbanistic and architectural changes on site. The "King Abdallah Grand Expansion Project" of the Al Haram Mosque in Mecca, the biggest mosque in the world, aims to increase its capacity to 1,500,000 pilgrims. Currently maintenance and rescue services are not well organized. Thus the number of people being able to perform the Tawaf (circling) and Sa'ee (ritual walk) is limited. Also luggage and sanitary services are not sufficient or not easy to reach. The planned extension, which is only the first of several future additions, foresees an extension of the pilgrims' facilities into the nearby valley and the hills north of the Al Haram Mosque. This expansion presents a unique opportunity for the sustainable development of an iconic building of exceptional scale. ingenhoven architects made a ground-breaking proposal for this expansion as part of an international design competition in 2008.