Project Rise - Lumenis
Light of Life - The Vertical City
Architects : HKS Architects | Location: Riyadh, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The Project
Lumenis is a visionary 2,000 metre tall vertical city designed as a landmark project aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Housing over 20,000 permanent residents and welcoming up to 30 million visitors annually, the supertower blends sustainability, technology, and cultural heritage into a singular urban form.
Inspired by the walled Medina, the tower reimagines traditional urban elements—such as courtyards, souks, and mosques—within a vertical context. It operates as a self-sustaining ecosystem with net-positive energy performance, regenerative water and waste systems, and integrated vertical farming.
Scale
Minmud created a series of CG images for HKS’s competition entry, with the key visual challenge being to communicate the immense scale of Lumenis within the wider context of Riyadh. To do this, we used elevated aerial camera perspectives, integrated the tower subtly into the skyline of everyday urban moments, and placed large-scale objects, such as Ferris wheels, in the mid-ground to provide an intuitive sense of proportion and monumentality.
Narrative
Minmud carefully crafts each image as part of a cohesive visual narrative, ensuring every composition contributes to a unified portfolio that feels like a family of images. While each frame stands on its own with a distinct mood or moment, they are all interconnected sharing tone, style, and story so that the overall set reinforces a broader architectural narrative with clarity and emotional resonance.
