What the building is

The Riyadh Air Training Centre is an 11,560 m² aircraft cabin crew training centre and simulators building for Riyadh Air, located in the Airport Road GACA Complex in Riyadh. Savills and Stylus were the consultants; Youssef Marroun Contracting Co. is the contractor. The project is ongoing.

The site sits within the King Salman International Airport District Master Plan framework, and the final revised elevations were aligned with the KSIA guidelines. That is not a cosmetic constraint — airport district guidelines govern the massing, the material palette, and the visual relationship between buildings, so they affect the architecture from the first elevation study rather than being applied as a check at the end.

The building is composed of two very different elements. There is a 21 metre high steel structure simulator building, and a three-level concrete building that houses the administration, offices, classrooms, and facility areas.

Two buildings, two sets of requirements

A cabin crew simulator hall is a volume problem. Simulators are large, they need to be approached and manoeuvred into position, they need overhead clearance for maintenance access, and they need a controlled internal environment so that the training result is not affected by the weather outside.

The classrooms and offices that support that training are a completely different problem. They need daylight, acoustic control, finishes that can be maintained, and a plan that supports circulation between rooms on a timetable rather than vehicle movement on a floor plate.

Setting the two elements side by side — a tall steel hall and a lower concrete building with regular floors — is the basic architectural move, and it is legible on site. The stone-clad volume with its narrow vertical window openings reads very differently from the glazed base beneath it and from the long logistics elements alongside.

  • 21 m high steel structure simulator building
  • Three-level concrete building for admin, offices and classrooms
  • Located in the Airport Road GACA Complex
  • Elevations aligned to King Salman International Airport guidelines

The material palette was set by the master plan

The elevation package specifies the facade materials directly. Yellow Riyadh stone is used on the office building. Coregated coated metal is used on the logistic buildings. Bronze metal is used as an accent. The classroom buildings are clad in Riyadh stone and dark metal, with the dark metal option developed in response to comments on the earlier scheme.

Working to a prescribed palette is a discipline of its own. Riyadh stone is a local material with real performance and maintenance implications; coregated metal is a different system entirely, in terms of fixing, tolerances, and how it moves. Getting those two to meet cleanly on the same elevation, and finding where bronze can be used as an accent without becoming decoration for its own sake, is a genuine design and documentation task.

[VERIFY: how did you handle the interface between Riyadh stone and coregated metal? And was the dark metal classroom option something you coordinated heavily?]

  • Yellow Riyadh stone — office building
  • Coregated coated metal — logistic buildings
  • Bronze metal — accent
  • Riyadh stone and dark metal — classroom buildings

The interior programme

Stylus ASD developed the interior design for the training centre, and the published visual set covers eight space types: reception, cafeteria, classroom, majlis, office, instructor's room, briefing room, and corridor.

That list is worth reading as a brief rather than a menu. A flight training facility needs a reception that handles visitor flows separately from trainees, a majlis for formal hospitality, a briefing room adjacent to the simulators, and an instructor's room that supports the teaching team specifically. Each exists because of how aviation training actually runs.

These visuals are the designer's work and are credited to Stylus ASD. They are useful reference for understanding the intended spatial character, but they are not my visualisation output.

Coordinating the build

The site photographs show the project during construction, and they are useful because they show the coordination reality rather than the render. A steel frame being erected beside a stone-clad volume that is already finished means two very different trades, tolerances, and programmes running side by side on one site.

The primary steel frame with its RL aviation lettering is visible alongside the completed stone cladding, which is exactly the condition where a coordination error becomes expensive: once one element is closed up, an interface that was only a drawing issue becomes a physical one.

[VERIFY: describe the coordination challenges you actually worked through on this project. Any specifics about sequencing, the interface between the steel hall and the concrete building, or shop drawing turnaround will be far more valuable than general commentary.]

  • Primary steel frame erected alongside completed stone cladding
  • Multiple trades and programmes running concurrently on one site
  • Simulator hall, classroom building and logistics elements

Project facts

Published project data:

  • Client: Riyadh Air
  • Consultant: Savills / Stylus
  • Contractor: Youssef Marroun Contracting Co.
  • Location: Airport Road, GACA Complex, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • Area: 11,560 m²
  • Structure: 21 m high steel simulator building plus 3-level concrete building
  • Category: Training centre
  • Status: On going