The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (Kapsarc), designed by the renowned Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has been named the smartest building in Saudi Arabia at the Honeywell Smart Building Awards programme.

Kapsarc has a modular design based on the hexagonal structure of a honeycomb, reported the Global Construction Review.

“This emerges from the desert landscape, evolving to best respond to the environmental conditions and internal programme requirements,” said the report, citing ZHA.

The campus buildings surround a courtyard shaded by canopies supported by a forest of steel columns, said the report.

It presents a solid shell to the torrid sunlight from the south, and opens up to the north and west, allowing the prevailing winds to cool the courtyard during temperate months and preparing a future expansion of the campus to the north, it added.

Some of the cells within each building are left open to create courtyards that bring daylight into the interior. The projects was awarded Leed Platinum certification by the US Green Building Council.

The 70,000-sq-m campus contains five buildings: the Energy Knowledge Centre; Energy Computer Centre; a conference centre with exhibition hall and 300-seat auditorium; a research library with archives for 100,000 volumes; and ‘musalla’, a prayer area.

The research centre recently hosted its first public conference, with more than 20,000 visitors attending during Saudi Design Week 2017.