How Madinah’s sustainable smart-lighting project will complement holy city’s unique identity 

How Madinah’s sustainable smart-lighting project will complement holy city’s unique identity 

MADINAH: For hundreds of years, Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Madinah, known as the city of lights, has been a beacon of knowledge, peace, and enlightenment. Today, the city of the prophet aims to enchant visitors and inhabitants with a brand new smart lighting system. Architect Ziad Tariq Darwish Daiwali, the project’s studies and design director, told Arab News he is optimistic about the sustainable transformation, which will highlight Madinah’s natural beauty, while also increasing nighttime safety and security. The first stage of the project, which is still in the early stages of implementation, will exchange many of the city’s existing yellow lightbulbs for LED streetlights, which consume far less energy and will benefit the environment. “The light can change your mood, change your feeling and change the feeling inside the city when you walk through it and near the Al-Haram (mosque),” Daiwali told Arab News. “Our aim in this project is to give a special visual experience for residents and visitors to Madinah. We started to focus on the most (popular) areas people come to visit, next to Al-Haram, the central area. “It’ll be the first step from this project and after that we will be focusing on heritage