The Ramadan Night Journey – Utilizing Water & Light As Symbolic Design Elements
As Ramadan approaches, cities across Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf shift into a different rhythm. Public life moves later into the evening, streets and dining districts fill after Iftar, families extend their time outdoors, and public spaces take on a quieter sense of purpose. In hot climates, this seasonal change reshapes what people need from the public realm, comfort, legibility, atmosphere, and moments that feel culturally aligned rather than generic.
Crystal Fountains created The Ramadan Night Journey to explore how water features can operate as responsive public infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, supporting prayer, climate, and everyday ritual rather than functioning as fixed visual elements. Ramadan brings this need into sharp focus, as prayer times shape movement and public life concentrates after sunset. The intent is to show how water, light, fog, and embedded technology can function as a unified system that responds to presence, timing, and ritual with restraint, cueing when helpful, yielding when reverence takes precedence, and returning quietly to support comfort, orientation, and gathering. Moments such as Maghrib (sunset prayer), Iftar (breaking of the fast), Taraweeh (Ramadan night prayers), and the approach of Fajr (dawn prayer) are treated as design inputs that structure water feature behaviour. The design language is based on responsiveness along with display. Lighting is used as a visual cue and time marker, helping people intuitively read transitions without instruction. Interactivity is driven by foot traffic and presence, as well as by fixed shows, allowing spaces to adapt naturally as crowds gather, disperse, or slow. Water and fog contribute to microclimate cooling and acoustic softness, strengthening comfort during peak evening use while remaining restrained during prayer. Fog can also disperse scent as a subtle atmospheric layer, drawing on cultural familiarity with fragrance and Islamic practices of beautification without turning the environment into a spectacle. Architectural infrastructure is conceived as tactile and multi-generational, with water integrated in ways that support everyday ritual, including intuitive engagement around Wudhu (ablution).
While Ramadan provides the lens, this design logic extends year-round, offering a framework for water features that integrate seamlessly into daily life from a cultural and religious perspective. The goal is alignment. Water features that belong to Saudi public space because it supports how people move and gather.
Founded in 1966, Crystal Fountains is a third-generation, family-owned and operated commercial water feature design, engineering, and manufacturing firm headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with offices in the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Germany, and Singapore. Crystal Fountains combines art, engineering, and technology to deliver interactive, theatrical, traditional, and sculptural water features, supporting projects from concept through design and engineering, tender documentation, in-house custom manufacturing, programming and choreography, and commissioning, with ongoing technical support, upgrades, parts, and maintenance guidance across the fountain lifecycle.
Crystal Fountains will be in Riyadh on June 8 and 9 for FutureScape Global and welcomes conversations with Saudi-based and international design teams shaping culturally grounded public spaces across the Kingdom.
Connect with Crystal Fountains and meet the team in Riyadh - https://crystalfountains.com/contact-us/