Mark Foster Gage designs 450-metre-long bridge hotel at Neom
Saudi development Neom has unveiled a hotel called Treyam that bridges a lagoon as the latest resort on the Gulf of Aqaba.
Designed by US studio Mark Foster Gage Architects, the 250-room hotel will be contained within a 450-metre-long bridge with glass-bottomed rooms and topped with an infinity pool.
It is set to be built on the Gulf of Aqaba around 10 kilometres north of The Line development in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
According to the studio, the hotel was raised to give a different perspective of the surrounding landscape, lagoon and sea.
"Treyam is a luxury hotel that hovers above the landscape offering a new perspective on how architecture engages with nature," explained Mark Foster Gage Architects founder Mark Foster Gage.
"You have an opportunity to go at a higher vantage point and appreciate the Gulf of Aqaba from this breathtaking view."
The hotel's rooms will be contained within the bridge and feature glass floors and glass ceilings. A 450-metre-long infinity pool will top the entire length of the bridge.
"Our idea was to lift the entire hotel up above all of that [the marine life]," said Gage. "The hotel has been elevated and turned into a 450-meter long bridge.
"Each of the rooms has a partially glass floor. You're literally hovering over an entire underwater ecosystem and looking out over the vastness and beauty of the natural world," he continued.
"The rooms also have partially glass ceiling, which means you also have a direct connection to some of the most incredible views of the stars that I've seen in my entire life."
Treyam is the latest in a series of resorts announced by Neom for the Gulf of Aqaba coast in the northwest of the country. These include a "secret garden" spa resort also designed by Mark Foster Gage Architects, an "exclusive sanctuary resort" designed by Dutch studio OMA and an "upside-down skyscraper" named Aquellum,
The resorts form part of the wider Neom project, which is one of the largest and most controversial developments in the world. Along with a 170-kilometre-long city named The Line, it includes an Octagon-shaped port city designed by Danish studio BIG.
The project has been criticised on human rights grounds with human rights organisation ALQST reporting that three men were sentenced to death after being "forcibly evicted" from the Neom site. UN Human Rights Council later expressed "alarm" over the imminent executions. Saudi Arabia responded to the UN by denying abuses had taken place.
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