Associate Director – Building Services (Mechanical)

Role Overview

Associate Director – Building Services (Mechanical) with WSP Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The successful candidate will own the end-to-end mechanical station fit-out design for rail/metro/train stations through concept, schematic, detailed/IFC, tender, and construction support.

Role Purpose

Lead the design and delivery of mechanical systems for metro stations, covering HVAC, environmental control, smoke control/TVS, pressurization, and technical space cooling with full integration into BMS/SCADA systems across all project phases.

Key Responsibilities

Station HVAC & Ventilation Design

• Lead HVAC and ventilation design for underground, at-grade, and elevated stations.
• Conduct cooling and heating load estimates and plant sizing for chilled water, DX, and VRF systems.
• Select AHU, FAHU, and FCU equipment with appropriate filtration strategy for sand and dust.
• Design ventilation and pressurization for platforms, concourses, back-of-house areas, and plantrooms.

Smoke Control & Fire Safety

• Engineer smoke control and TVS systems including fan, shaft, and damper sizing and arrangement.
• Manage platform and concourse smoke layer management and stair and lift lobby pressurization.
• Coordinate PSD heat load, emergency modes, and control logic.

Technical Room Cooling & Resilience

• Design environmental control for S&T, relay, SCADA, UPS, communications, and data spaces.
• Implement N+1 redundancy and resilience strategies for critical technical rooms.
• Conduct thermal runaway risk checks and establish alarm set-points.

High-Ambient Climate Design

• Apply equipment derating, select appropriate coils, and implement corrosion mitigation strategies.
• Evaluate airside economizer feasibility and sand-ingress protection.
• Define acoustic and indoor air-quality criteria.

Digital Delivery & BIM

• Lead Revit and AutoCAD design with Navisworks BIM coordination.
• Prevent clashes, develop interface matrices, and conduct structured model reviews.
• Ensure BEP compliance and info-exchange protocols.

Calculations & Documentation

• Prepare Basis-of-Design and detailed calculations.
• Produce P&IDs, schematics, control sequences, layouts, sections, and details.
• Develop equipment schedules, specifications, BOQs, and performance engineering requirements.

Analysis & Verification

• Conduct CFD and FDS analysis for smoke and comfort assessment.
• Apply SES or equivalent for tunnel and station ventilation analysis where applicable.
• Facilitate egress and fire strategy interface workshops.

Approvals & Stakeholder Management

• Manage KSA authority submissions and approvals.
• Lead multidisciplinary design reviews.
• Operate value engineering and risk registers.

Construction Support

• Respond to RFIs and review vendor submittals.
• Witness FAT and SAT activities.
• Support testing and commissioning and seasonal commissioning activities.

Team Leadership

• Mentor engineers and designers on the team.
• Plan workloads and QA/QC deliverables.
• Contribute to proposals and level-of-effort estimation.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering.
• 12–18+ years in building services with major rail/metro station HVAC/ventilation delivery in design consultancy.
• GCC experience strongly preferred.
• Professional registration (e.g., CEng/PE) strongly preferred.
• Proven expertise in station HVAC, ventilation, and smoke control/pressurization to NFPA/EN standards.
• Demonstrated experience in cooling of critical technical rooms with resilience (N+1, duty/standby).
• Experience writing control philosophies and sequences and integrating with BMS/SCADA systems.
• Proficiency in BIM coordination (Revit/Navisworks) and production of IFC-ready deliverables.

Skills & Competencies

• HAP, IES, or TRACE (or equivalent) thermal analysis tools.
• CFD and FDS modelling.
• SES or similar ventilation analysis software.
• MS Office.
• Strong stakeholder management and workshop facilitation skills with clients, operators, and authorities.

Additional Information

Nice to Have

• District cooling interface design experience.
• Energy modelling and optimization for high-ambient climates.
• Experience with tunnel ventilation interactions and evacuation scenarios in multi-station corridors.
• Prior approvals experience with Riyadh Civil Defense/SBC.
• RAMS familiarity (EN 50126/8/9) and reliability-led design experience.