Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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urban growth and management must first be authorized by the Deputy Ministry for
Municipal and Rural Affairs at the Capital. Likewise, the municipality also implemented
numerous circulars, decrees and ordinances that are apriori ratified and codified by the
Council of Ministers. It also meant that the customary building practices which
characterized the traditional building processes were supplanted by institutionalized national
municipal codes. The application of these codes en masse at the national level has
contributed largely to similar urban forms in Saudi Arabia. In the pre-industrial, pre-Saudi
urban environments, different regions in the country developed unique morphologies
highly adapted to their physical and cultural systems.
Still, to the local population, the establishment of the municipality has been perceived
as synonymous with "modernization," and an arm of the wealthy state. Already by the
close of the 1960s, Huraimla's growth followed the east and north axis of the new tarmac
road leading to Al-Garinah, a village a few miles to the east, and Riyadh, 50 miles to the
southwest. As land prices rose, farmers converted their farm land into residential uses.
The municipal staff would plat their properties into rectilinear subdivisions, with straight
and wider streets geared toward the accommodation of the automobile. Land was
subdivided according to the gird, with streets 25 feet wide to allow for the car. The new
houses in the area immediately east and north of the demolished al Jama'ah wall, were built
comprising hybrid styles, essentially conforming to the post-mud pattern found in the
ah'yaa ashsha'abiyah (popular neighborhoods or communities) in Riyadh, Arar and many
other Saudi settlements. These units are built on rectangular lots, with no setbacks from
streets and neighbors and, like their predecessors, the mud houses, included a courtyard.
The ah'yaa ashsha'abiyah 's model house is a modified version, a middle-step
residential unit which accompanied the transitional period from the mud house to the
modem villa. It is built with cement bricks and roofs were reinforced with wooden beams.
It was tiled and finished with newly adopted building materials, such as cement tiles, metal
doors, wooden or metal windows with glass and outside shutters. The "post-mud house"
was equipped with electrical wiring and sanitary fixtures, and later with aircooling units.
Figures 8.4 and 8.5 show the differences between the town's organic organization of built
cells and circulation spaces in the old settlement and the new modified neighborhoods
eastern (Ashshariy'ah and Attwail'ah) neighborhoods (Assubaikhah) with orthogonal