AtharX has officially launched as a Saudi-headquartered experience design studio, founded to meet a precise and consequential gap in the Kingdom's creative sector: the absence of a studio capable of combining genuine Saudi cultural leadership with world-class design execution.
The studio works across museums, cultural districts, heritage sites, and tourism destinations, delivering end-to-end experience design services including narrative and interpretive planning, spatial and environmental design, and the purposeful integration of media and immersive technology.
AtharX operates entirely from within the Kingdom, with a founding team of experienced Saudi creative professionals supported by a curated network of international collaborators.
Belal A Qilan, founder and CEO of AtharX, says:
"We are not simply launching a studio. We are making a commitment — to the idea that Saudi Arabia's most significant cultural projects deserve to be led from within, by people who understand this culture deeply and hold their work to the highest global standards."
Saudi leadership at the centre of the work
Saudi Arabia's cultural sector is expanding at a rapid pace and scale.
Hundreds of cultural destinations are being developed under Vision 2030. Projects that will serve as many international visitors' first substantive encounter with the Kingdom and shape how Saudi culture is understood by the world for decades.
Until now, the experience design capability required to deliver these projects at the highest level has largely been sourced internationally, with cultural consultancy layered in rather than leading the work. AtharX was established to change that.
By placing Saudi creative leadership at the centre of every project, the studio ensures that the stories being told are the right stories, told with the precision, authenticity, and cultural intelligence that no external team can fully replicate.
This does not mean closing the door to international expertise. AtharX operates through a model that combines local leadership with global collaboration, enabling the studio to deliver at international standards while ensuring that cultural authorship remains firmly within the Kingdom.
Building capability that stays in the Kingdom
AtharX's model is designed not only to deliver individual projects but to contribute to the long-term development of Saudi Arabia's creative economy.
By building and retaining design expertise within the Kingdom, training a new generation of Saudi experience designers, and establishing a local reference point for world-class cultural experience design, the studio is invested in a future that extends well beyond any single commission.
AtharX says that every project it delivers is simultaneously a proof of concept for what Saudi creative leadership can produce and for the kind of studio the Kingdom's cultural ambitions deserve.
Charlotte Coates is blooloop's editor. She is from Brighton, UK and previously worked as a librarian. She has a strong interest in arts, culture and information and graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in English Literature. Charlotte can usually be found either with her head in a book or planning her next travel adventure.
