What’s planned for NEOM’s futuristic Trojena Ski Village?

Trojena Ski Village is slated for completion in 2026, with a gross floor area of 270,000 square metres located in the northernmost portion of the NEOM project area, near Jabal al-Lawz, or Lawz Mountain.

The location’s altitude, shade from the surrounding mountain peaks, and flow of wind are factors that facilitate a milder, cooler climate in the mountain range compared to the rest of Saudi Arabia.

The resort will include year-round skiing (three months on snow and synthetic ‘dry’ skiing all year), retail stores, restaurants, luxury mansions, apartments and luxury hotels including serviced apartments operated by prestigious operators.

By 2030, the tourist attraction expects to host 700,000 annual visitors and be home to as many as 7,000 residents.

A vertical ski village

Responding to a simple yet complex brief to ‘create something never seen before,’ Aedas came up with a new way to interpret what a ski village can be.

“For millennia, ski villages have had the same formula with multiple plots and buildings connected by roads. We challenged this convention by asking what if the village could be a building. This led us to dream up a superstructure that has the scale of a village but with all the connections and mobility happening vertically across several levels,” said Aedas’ Global Design Principal Ignacio Gomez.

Visitors will be able to smoothly transit between indoor and outdoor experiences through a variety of vertical mobility devices, both passive and active.

Views and light

The ski village is divided into five major zones connected through the roof and ground floor. The open ground floor is a viewing platform for the surrounding landscape.

Morgans Original, located on the topmost level, offers views of the Gulf of Aqaba. 25hours hotel also enjoys similar prime views into internal courtyards.

The residential apartments offer views of the lake and ski slopes, while the sloping roof provides opportunity for sports and houses rooftop cafés and pocket gardens.

Blending surroundings

Like other NEOM luxury tourism destinations, the resort’s architecture is intended to blend in with and extend the natural surrounding landscapes rather than impose structure upon it, using modular construction for its steel-frame structure.

“Our foremost consideration was to create a structure that would blend with the terrain. It has a monumental scale that reads as topography and feels as if it is born from the ground. With the passage of time, the building will age and acquire a patina. We imagine a future when it will become part of the mountain, completely camouflaged by snow,” said Ignacio.

The roof structure of the village, designed to align with the natural undulations of the mountain, provides 2km of the planned 36km of ski slopes.

The design harnesses the surroundings to create an even milder microclimate to reduce solar gain and the need for artificial cooling by incorporating landscaping, water features, overhanging canopies, and self-shading devices.

Snow in the desert

While winter will allow skiing down Trojena’s slopes, during the rest of the year, visitors will be able to ski on the synthetic surface slopes, go mountain biking and take the zip line, Alpine coaster, and do other mountain sports.

During three months of the winter season, low temperatures in the 2,400-metre-high Ski Village allow for snow making, which which will also be offset by natural snowfall. The snow making system will comprise an integrated dual system using both traditional (fangun) and all-weather snow making systems, methods which are used to extend the skiing season at other resorts elsewhere in the world.

Aedas’ planned designs for the snow making system include using 100% renewable energy, incorporating heat recovery systems for nearby development, maximising water recovery and reuse, and using water drawn from renewable energy powered desalination with zero brine discharge to the sea, as the brine will be refined to provide value added products for industrial and agricultural purposes.

Snow making tech has been tested onsite over the last three winter seasons to assess the quantum, quality, and longevity of the snow produced, as well as the energy and water consumption, and reliability of equipment.

Aedas predicts the resort may achieve a LEED Gold rating once complete.

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