Global Project Tour | Middle East Stop: Where AESS4 Meets Islamic Architectural Art

Zhejiang Jinggong International Steel Building Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinggong International Steel Building“JISB”) takes green intelligent manufacturing as its strategic core. Aligned with the Belt and Road Initiative, the company has established a presence across six major overseas markets, including Hong Kong & Macao, Australia & New Zealand, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Japan, and North Africa. With industry-leading capabilities in high-end steel structure fabrication and complex structural installation, Jinggong International Steel Building serves super-scale projects worldwide.

Global Project Showcase Stop 4

Middle East

Into the “Architectural Masterpiece in the Desert” 

 Makkah Railway Station

Roof coverage area: Approx. 109,400 m²

What Jinggong International Steel Building delivered 

is more than a steel structure

it is a timeless steel masterpiece.

As the core hub of the Haramain High-Speed Railway and the largest railway station in the Middle East, Makkah Railway Station seamlessly integrates Islamic arch aesthetics with modern architectural design. However, its fully customized hyperbolic geometry combined with the world’s most stringent AESS4 exposed steel structure requirements created dual extreme challenges, making it one of the industry’s most demanding projects.

This project featured no two identical members. Every component had at least two principal surfaces designed with hyperbolic curvature. Column heads, primary beams, and edge beams all adopted spatially twisted, variable box-section composite profiles. All bolted connection surfaces on site were required to achieve full-contact fit-up, meaning fabrication tolerances had to be controlled within sub-millimeter precision.

To meet the stringent installation requirements of this complex hyperbolic curved structure, Jinggong International Steel Building adopted full-contact mating surface machining combined with precision control of spatial twisting and gradual sectional transition. Full-scale 1:1 pre-assembly of physical components was completed in the factory to accurately replicate on-site installation conditions. Through segmented assembly and dynamic adjustment, the team verified component matching accuracy and interface compatibility in advance, ensuring 100% tight contact across all bolted connection surfaces and smooth, seamless transitions of the hyperbolic curved surfaces. 

By bringing certainty to fabrication at the factory stage, Jinggong International Steel Building ensured successful on-site installation with first-time acceptance. This was not merely the fabrication of steel components, but the process of sculpting architectural art with steel.

AESS4 Acceptance: 

 Aesthetic Quality Control

As the highest appearance classification for architectural exposed structural steel, AESS4 is widely recognized as the highest standard for steel structures. Under this standard, weld seams, grinding marks, identification markings, and surface scratches must be completely invisible.

The ultimate challenge of Makkah Railway Station lay in the fact that every surface was an exposed display surface. Under Saudi Arabia’s intense sunlight, heavy dust, and extreme heat, even the slightest imperfection could be dramatically magnified.

To meet this challenge, Jinggong International Steel Building adopted a comprehensive quality-control approach featuring optimized CJP (Complete Joint Penetration) welding, component-by-component manual finishing, and closed-loop coating control under constant temperature and humidity.

All exposed welds employed full-penetration groove welds, with strict control over heat input and weld formation to ensure smooth, seamless transitions between the weld seam and the base metal. This achievement was made possible by a key engineering optimization: upgrading the original design from exposed end-plate welding to external CJP welding, significantly enhancing both visual quality and structural integrity.

A dedicated AESS inspection team conducted 100% full inspection of all exposed components, ensuring that every weld was perfectly flush with the base material and every coating layer remained uniform and flawless to successfully passed acceptance inspection on the first submission.

As one of the first steel structure enterprises in China to obtain EN 1090 EXC4 certification, the highest execution class under European standards, Jinggong International Steel Building is also certified to multiple leading international standards, including AISC (U.S. Standard), GOST-R (Russian Standard), JIS-H (Japanese Standard), and ISO 3834-2 (International Welding Quality Standard), demonstrating its capability to meet the world’s most demanding project requirements.

Backed by comprehensive EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) delivery capability, Jinggong International Steel Building provides end-to-end project execution spanning detailed engineering, fabrication, cross-border logistics, and overseas erection. With full-process quality control and highly coordinated project management, the company ensures zero-defect delivery and on-schedule project completion for global clients.

We solve the technical challenges that 

others dare not take on or cannot deliver.

With advanced intelligent manufacturing capabilities,

 we serve steel structure projects worldwide.

“Precision in Technology, Excellence in Quality.”

This is not just a slogan—
it is the manufacturing code embedded in every single component.