Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) — Architect of New Murabba's First Residential Community

Kohn Pedersen Fox: Designing New Murabba’s First Community

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), headquartered in New York with offices in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Abu Dhabi, is one of the world’s most accomplished architecture firms. Founded in 1976 by A. Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen, and Sheldon Fox, KPF has grown over nearly five decades into a global practice with a portfolio that includes some of the most significant tall buildings, mixed-use developments, and urban masterplans of the modern era. Their appointment to lead the early design stages for New Murabba’s first residential community brings proven expertise in large-scale mixed-use development to the project’s most critical residential delivery — the Phase 1 community targeted for Expo 2030.

Firm History and Design Philosophy

KPF was founded during a period when architectural postmodernism was challenging the International Style’s dominance. Unlike some of their contemporaries who embraced the playful historicism of postmodern architecture, Kohn, Pedersen, and Fox charted a path that combined modernist spatial clarity with contextual sensitivity and material richness. This approach — buildings that are recognizably contemporary but respond to their specific cultural, climatic, and urban contexts — has become KPF’s signature design philosophy and directly informs their approach to New Murabba’s residential community.

William Pedersen, the firm’s longtime design partner, is widely recognized as one of the most important architects of tall buildings in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His approach to tower design — treating tall buildings not as isolated objects but as elements that contribute to and respond to their urban surroundings — has influenced a generation of architects and established KPF as the practice that global developers seek when they need buildings that are both iconic and contextually appropriate.

For New Murabba, this contextual design philosophy is critically important. The residential community must achieve two seemingly contradictory objectives: establishing visual coherence with the Najdi-inspired architectural language of The Mukaab and the broader district, while creating a domestic architectural character appropriate for family homes, apartments, and villas at a human scale. KPF’s demonstrated ability to work within cultural design traditions while deploying contemporary techniques — as evidenced by their projects in Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, and London — positions the firm to navigate this design challenge.

Landmark Portfolio: Buildings That Define City Skylines

KPF’s portfolio provides direct evidence of the firm’s capability to deliver at the scale and quality that New Murabba demands:

One Vanderbilt (427 meters, New York, 2020): Adjacent to Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, One Vanderbilt is KPF’s most recently completed American supertall tower. The 93-story building houses offices, a destination observation experience (SUMMIT One Vanderbilt), and ground-floor retail that activates the surrounding streetscape. One Vanderbilt demonstrates KPF’s ability to create landmark buildings that enhance their urban context rather than overwhelming it — the tower’s design respects the scale and character of Grand Central Terminal while establishing a new presence on the midtown skyline. For New Murabba, this contextual sensitivity — respecting the Najdi heritage while creating contemporary architecture — is directly relevant.

Shanghai World Financial Center (492 meters, Shanghai, 2008): KPF’s design for this iconic Shanghai tower — featuring the distinctive trapezoidal aperture at the summit — demonstrated the firm’s ability to create buildings that achieve global recognition while functioning effectively as mixed-use vertical communities. The tower combines offices, the Park Hyatt Shanghai hotel (occupying floors 79 to 93), and observation decks — a mix of uses directly comparable to The Mukaab’s residential, hospitality, and commercial programming.

International Commerce Centre (484 meters, Hong Kong, 2010): Located above Kowloon Station in Hong Kong, ICC showcases KPF’s expertise in transit-oriented development — connecting tall buildings to transportation infrastructure. The tower sits atop a multi-modal transport hub linking the Airport Express, Tung Chung Line, and bus services. This integration model directly informs New Murabba’s approach to connecting the residential community to the Riyadh Metro network, ensuring that the development functions as a transit-connected urban district rather than a car-dependent suburban enclave.

Lotte World Tower (555 meters, Seoul, 2017): South Korea’s tallest building, designed by KPF as a mixed-use development combining a luxury department store (floors 1-8), offices (floors 14-38), a hotel and serviced residences (floors 42-71, operated by Signiel Seoul, a Lotte Hotels brand), and a public observation deck (floors 117-123). The Lotte World Tower provides KPF with direct experience in designing luxury residences and hospitality spaces within super-scale buildings — experience directly transferable to the Mukaab residential and hotel programs. The tower’s residential component, marketed as some of Seoul’s most prestigious addresses, demonstrates KPF’s ability to create domestic architecture within monumental structures.

Hudson Yards Components (New York, ongoing): KPF designed 30 Hudson Yards (a mixed-use tower with offices, an observation deck, and event space) and 55 Hudson Yards (a residential tower) as part of New York’s $25 billion Hudson Yards mega-development. This involvement in America’s largest private real estate development provides KPF with direct experience in the challenges of large-scale, mixed-use district development — phased delivery, amenity programming, public realm design, and brand management across a multi-building development. The parallels to New Murabba’s district-scale challenge are direct.

One Shenzhen Bay (Shenzhen, China): KPF designed this mixed-use tower incorporating luxury residences, a hotel, and commercial space in one of China’s fastest-growing cities. The project demonstrates KPF’s ability to design for rapidly developing markets where premium positioning must be established from scratch — a challenge analogous to New Murabba’s goal of establishing Riyadh as a premium residential destination for international buyers.

Role at New Murabba: The First Residential Community

KPF’s role at New Murabba focuses on the design of the first residential community — the Phase 1 neighborhood targeted for delivery by Expo 2030. This community represents the most immediately relevant design output for prospective residential buyers, as it is the first component of New Murabba where actual homes will be available for purchase and occupation.

The design mandate for this community encompasses several architectural challenges:

Establishing Domestic Scale Within a Monumental District: The residential community must feel like a neighborhood — a place where families live, children play, and daily routines unfold comfortably — while existing within a 19-square-kilometer district dominated by the 400-meter Mukaab cube. KPF’s challenge is to create architecture at a human scale that does not appear diminished by its monumental neighbor. The firm’s experience in designing residential buildings adjacent to supertall towers (as at Hudson Yards) provides directly relevant skill in managing scale relationships between iconic structures and domestic architecture.

Interpreting Najdi Architecture at Residential Scale: The Najdi architectural language established for The Mukaab — triangular geometric patterns, golden coloring, references to Murabba Palace proportions — must be translated into a residential vocabulary appropriate for apartment buildings, villas, and townhouses. This translation requires sensitivity to both the heritage reference and the domestic requirements of contemporary living — natural light, open-plan layouts, private outdoor space, and connection to gardens and public realm. KPF’s approach to cultural contextualization in diverse markets (Asian, European, American) provides the design methodology for this translation.

Creating the Fifteen-Minute Community: The Phase 1 community must incorporate the fifteen-minute city concept that New Murabba Development Company promotes — ensuring that residents can access shops, parks, schools, healthcare, mosques, and essential services within a 15-minute walk. KPF’s masterplanning experience, including the urban design principles applied at Hudson Yards and in their Asian mixed-use developments, informs the spatial organization that achieves this walkability target.

Designing for the Riyadh Climate: The community must perform in Riyadh’s extreme desert climate — summer temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius, intense solar radiation, occasional sandstorms, and limited rainfall. KPF’s experience in designing for hot climates (particularly through their Abu Dhabi and Middle East practices) provides knowledge of climate-responsive design strategies: building orientation, shading systems, thermal mass management, natural ventilation where feasible, and the integration of green spaces that provide microclimate modification through shade and evaporative cooling.

Design Quality and Property Value

For prospective buyers, KPF’s involvement carries measurable property value implications. In global luxury real estate markets, the architect’s reputation contributes to buyer confidence, pricing power, and resale value. KPF-designed buildings in New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul command premiums over comparable buildings by less-recognized firms. This premium reflects buyer perception that KPF design quality ensures superior spatial planning, material specification, daylighting, and long-term architectural integrity.

At New Murabba, KPF’s involvement signals to international buyers, branded residence partners, and hospitality operators that the residential community will meet the design quality standards expected of a premier global development. This signaling function is particularly important for New Murabba, which must establish credibility with international audiences who may have limited prior experience with Saudi residential development.

KPF and the Salmani Architectural Movement

KPF’s appointment aligns with the broader Salmani architectural movement in Saudi Arabia — the design philosophy encouraging contemporary architecture rooted in Saudi heritage. KPF’s approach to contextual design — creating buildings that respond to their cultural and geographic settings while remaining contemporary — is naturally aligned with Salmani principles. The firm’s ability to study local architectural traditions and reinterpret their principles through modern materials and spatial concepts, demonstrated across diverse cultural contexts in Asia, Europe, and America, provides the design methodology that the Salmani movement seeks.

KPF’s Global Recognition and Awards

KPF’s design excellence has been recognized through numerous international awards, including the American Institute of Architects (AIA) firm award, Emporis Skyscraper Awards for multiple towers, and recognition from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) for best tall building performance. This institutional recognition provides independent validation of design quality that prospective New Murabba buyers can reference when assessing the architectural credibility of their investment.

The firm’s consistent appearance in global architecture publications — ArchDaily, Dezeen, Architectural Record, The Architectural Review — ensures that KPF-designed buildings receive international attention and critical scrutiny. For New Murabba, this media visibility means that the residential community will receive architectural coverage that extends the development’s brand recognition beyond real estate audiences to the broader cultural and design communities.

Organizational Depth for Long-Term Projects

KPF’s organizational structure is designed for multi-year and multi-decade project engagements. Unlike boutique architecture firms that depend on a small number of principals, KPF operates with a deep bench of design directors, senior associates, and project architects who provide continuity across extended project timelines. The firm’s design process is institutionalized through documentation, review protocols, and quality management systems that ensure design consistency even as individual team members rotate through different project phases.

For New Murabba, this organizational depth provides assurance that the design quality established in the initial concept phases will be maintained through detailed design development, construction documentation, and construction administration — a process that may span a decade or more for the complete residential community. The firm’s experience in managing design quality across phased developments (as at Hudson Yards) provides directly relevant institutional capability.

KPF’s Abu Dhabi Office: Regional Proximity

KPF’s Abu Dhabi office, established to serve the firm’s growing Middle East practice, provides regional proximity that facilitates close coordination with New Murabba Development Company. The Abu Dhabi office — approximately a one-hour flight from Riyadh — enables regular site visits, face-to-face design reviews, and direct engagement with local contractors and consultants that would be impractical from New York alone. This regional presence ensures that design decisions are informed by direct observation of local conditions, cultural context, and construction realities rather than remote assumptions.

For the design partner ecosystem including AECOM and Jacobs, see our Design section. For investment value implications of architectural quality, see our Investment section. For the Najdi architectural language that KPF interprets, see our architecture analysis. For construction progress on the Phase 1 community, see our Design section.