Zaha Hadid's Saudi Arabian metro station Home to more than 5million residents, Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh has more than doubled since 1990; to service the huge population growth, the city is currently developing a new metro system that will drastically alter how residents navigate their surroundings. Now under construction and with the entire system due to be completed within four years, the network will incorporate six separate lines; the metro station likely to be of most architectural interest to Saudi Arabia visitors is the King Abdullah Financial District stop, designed by London-based architect Zaha Hadid. Best known in Britain for her design of the Olympics Aquatic Centre, Hadid has again envisaged a curved structure, with the station's undulating form supposedly referencing Saudi Arabia's desert sand dunes. Measuring 20,434 square meters in size, the huge space will feature four public floors as well as two levels of underground parking and is intended to function as a gathering place as well as an interchange. A number of gangways and route within the structure will be incorporated to alleviate congestion and the station will also be connected to the Riyadh monorail via a skybridge. The latticed façade of the building allows light to enter the structure while providing a degree of protection against the glare of the sun. Zaha Hadid Architects is currently involved in numerous big-budget construction projects around the world, and the company's work has been drawing attention internationally. A firm in the Chinese city of Chongqing was recently accused of constructing a pirated Zaha Hadid building, when plans emerged showing that the project was startlingly similar in design to Hadid's Wangjing SOHO project in Beijing. Images: Zaha Hadid Architects