The International Code Council ran a dedicated Saudi Building Code programme at Big 5 Construct Saudi on 31 August, pairing a keynote on the code's role in project outcomes with a practical compliance workshop led by Vortex Fire and a question-and-answer session on applying the code to real projects.
The most practically useful session at Big 5 Construct Saudi this year was not on the exhibition floor. It was a day of code sessions in the Big 5 Talks Theatre in Hall 1 on 31 August, where the International Code Council ran a programme dedicated to the application of the Saudi Building Code — the regulatory framework that has governed construction in the Kingdom on a mandatory basis since the middle of last year.
The programme was built in three parts. It opened with a keynote from Dr Fahad Saud Allahaim, chairman of the technical committee of the residential building code at the Saudi Building Code National Committee and an assistant professor at King Saud University, examining the role of the code in project outcomes. The central element was a workshop billed as Navigating the Saudi Building Code: Key Requirements and Compliance Pathways, led by Tom Wood, regional director at Vortex Fire, and Kareem Morsi, senior fire engineer at the same firm, covering the structure of the code, the key requirements of SBC 201 and the routes available to demonstrate compliance. The day closed with an applied question-and-answer session moderated by Mohamed Amer, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Code Council, alongside Dr Allahaim and Kareem Morsi, aimed at project-specific problems.
The reason a trade show devotes a theatre to this is that the Saudi Building Code has changed status. The 2024 edition, the first major revision since 2018, became mandatory on 30 June 2025. It updated the international references the code draws on and added provisions including seismic design of steel structures, assessment and rehabilitation of existing concrete structures, and concrete reinforced with glass-fibre-reinforced polymer. For a contractor, that is not an academic update. It changes what has to be designed, what has to be tested and what has to be documented before a building is approved.
The code is organised as a set of modules rather than a single document — the general building code, SBC 201, sits alongside structural, mechanical, plumbing, fire protection, energy conservation and existing-building modules — and the compliance question on most projects is which module governs a given decision, and how the demonstration is made. That is precisely the territory the workshop set out to cover, and it is where projects most often lose time: not in disagreeing with a requirement, but in discovering late which pathway the approving authority expects.
The choice of Vortex Fire to lead the practical session reflects where the friction concentrates. Fire and life safety is the area of the code where prescriptive requirements and performance-based alternatives most often collide with an architectural intent, and where the consequences of choosing the wrong route surface at the worst possible moment — during Civil Defence inspection, with the building otherwise complete.
The Saudi Building Code's enforcement machinery has been strengthened alongside the technical content. The framework rests on a royal decree establishing the code system and defining permits and penalties, with executive regulations setting out procedures, approval requirements and the classification of violations, and the Saudi Building Code Center operating as the independent body responsible for policy, standards and implementation. Conformity assessment bodies accepted for Saudi Building Code work sit between manufacturers and approvals, which is why product certification has become a procurement issue rather than a technical footnote.
The wider conference programme at the show placed codes, standards and regulations alongside health and safety, sustainability, artificial intelligence, project management, concrete, modular construction and HVACR, with speaking organisations including the Saudi Building Code Center, ROSHN Group, SEVEN, Al Kholi Group, Saudi Binladin Group, Modern Building Leaders, Misk City, Kabbani Construction Group and Dussman Ajlan & Bros. That mix — a regulator, developers and contractors in the same programme — is a reasonable indication of how quickly code compliance has moved up the agenda of the people who have to deliver against it.
For the audience in Hall 1, the value of a session like this is unglamorous and specific. Most of the cost of a code is not in meeting it. It is in finding out, halfway through a project, that it was going to be met a different way.