Abstract

Planners and urban designers have devised certain parameters that help in solving past and present urban problems, at the same time directing what they see as sustainable future development. In contrast to all advanced theoretical, practical, and environmental technicalities, the main concept of Thuwal, the old Red Sea fishing village, is to develop an old decaying country environment into a marina-type resort and fishing town. The developer wants to sustain the history and the inherited social structure and the cultural characteristics of the village, integrating them into a fully modern infrastructure and advanced construction sustainable environment. Due to the many influential variables involved in the planning and the design strategy, and the intense parameters, conditions, and requirements in the master plan, the study follows a simplified but fully illustrated discussion. Strategy will be discussed by way of points classified into three planning frameworks, regional, urban and spatial. Each point will first be explained, evaluated and its prospects examined, and finally preferences of implementation will be considered. Concepts of sustainability and environmental friendliness will be articulated into precepts intended to manage, measure and generate a relation that brings together energy, materials and waste with economy, environment and society in the context of the past, the present and the future. Finally, land carrying capacity will integrate qualities and quantities, and provide appropriateness, efficiency, diversity and other parameters of land use, which will be confined to the fact that this study is integrating users’ services, needs and activities with the urban resources, services, utilities and facilities.