Middle East Business
Diriyah hands over a 33,168 square metre headquarters certified to two green standards
By Staff Writer | 21 August 2026
The Ministry of Culture has completed its move into what the developer describes as the largest standalone office building in Diriyah, carrying LEED Gold for core and shell and a Gold commercial rating under the Saudi national scheme.
Diriyah Company has announced that the Ministry of Culture has completed its relocation to a new headquarters in Diriyah's Northern District, built as part of the company's urban master plan. The building has a total built-up area of 33,168 square metres and is described by the developer as the largest standalone office building in Diriyah to date.
The move follows a memorandum of understanding signed between the Ministry of Culture and the Diriyah Gate Development Authority in mid-2022. The building has been designed to house the ministry's teams and operational requirements, with what the developer describes as advanced digital infrastructure and tailored office layouts.
We are pleased that the Ministry of Culture has chosen Diriyah as its headquarters, and we are proud of our partnership with the ministry in developing its new headquarters. This milestone reflects the pace at which we are advancing Diriyah as a fully integrated urban destination for living, working, and visiting.
Jerry Inzerillo, Group Chief Executive Officer of Diriyah Company
Two certifications, and only one of them covers the fit-out
The building has been certified LEED Gold under the version 4 BD+C rating for Core and Shell Development, and has been awarded a Gold commercial rating under Mostadam, the Saudi national green building rating system.
Core and Shell is not the whole building. That rating scheme addresses the base building, the envelope and the central systems, and it leaves the tenant's own fit-out to a separate assessment. A Core and Shell certificate is not a statement about the space the occupier ends up working in.
The distinction matters commercially rather than only technically. On a Core and Shell project the developer carries the energy, water and materials credits that sit in the structure, the facade and the central plant, while the interiors, lighting controls and much of the indoor environmental quality performance follow the occupier. Where a building is procured on that basis, the tenant's fit-out contract is where a good deal of the certified performance is either delivered or lost, and the obligations in that contract have to be written to match the base building's design assumptions.
The published announcement does not say whether the ministry's fit-out was assessed separately, under LEED Interior Design and Construction or otherwise, and it names no target for energy or water performance in use. It cites energy efficiency, water conservation, waste management, and health and wellbeing as the areas the ratings reflect, without figures attached to any of them.
What is not in the announcement
No contract value is given for the headquarters, no contractor or consultant is named in what has been published, and no construction programme or practical completion date appears. The 33,168 square metres is a gross built-up area, not a net internal or lettable figure, so it cannot be used to work out occupancy density or to compare the building against an office of stated net area.
The wider development is described as a 63 billion dollar integrated urban project, with stated targets of more than 50 million visitors a year by 2030, 180,000 jobs and accommodation for about 100,000 residents. Those are programme aspirations rather than committed works, and none of them is broken down by phase or by year in the announcement.
For a consultant looking for the next opportunity here, the useful signal is not the ministry's move. It is that a client on a scheme of this size has now taken a large office to Core and Shell plus a national rating on the same building, because that combination sets the specification the next one is likely to be procured against.