Omrania was founded when architects Basem Al-Shihabi and Nabil Fanous collaborated to win an international design competition for the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) Headquarters in Riyadh.[8] In order to design and supervise the building's construction, they opened a small office that eventually grew into a large, multi-disciplinary practice of Omrania. Since then, Omrania has become a major contributor to Riyadh’s urban expansion, as the capital city grew from 150,000 people in 1960 to 7.6 million by 2017.