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Sports Boulevard Foundation Wins King Salman Charter for Architecture, Urbanism Award

Sports Boulevard Foundation Wins King Salman Charter for Architecture, Urbanism Award
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Sports Boulevard Foundation Wins King Salman Charter for Architecture, Urbanism Award

Sports Boulevard Foundation Wins King Salman Charter for Architecture, Urbanism Award

The Sports Boulevard Foundation has won the prestigious King Salman Charter for Architecture and Urbanism Award, organized by the Architecture and Design Commission. The award recognizes the project’s excellence in embracing the principles and standards of the charter through the implementation of the design code for the Sports Boulevard.
CEO of the Architecture and Design Commission, Dr. Sumayah Al-Sulaiman, presented the award to CEO of the Sports Boulevard Foundation, Jayne McGivern, during the award's closing ceremony at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, SPA reported.
The Sports Boulevard Foundation won the award for its integration of a unique design code and its commitment to applying the code, which balances authenticity and modernity, showcasing innovative and distinct urban outputs.
The award seeks to celebrate and recognize projects that distinguish themselves by embodying the values of the King Salman Charter for Architecture and Urbanism. It aims to contribute to achieving the objectives of the charter and to encourage and motivate entities, practitioners, and students to incorporate the charter’s values into their work, fostering a competitive environment that produces a higher level of urban excellence.
The project applies local identity and Salmani architecture across its various elements, not just in buildings, and has gained the trust of a committee of 30 local and international experts in architecture and design. McGivern also mentioned that the Sports Boulevard project is designed to revolutionize urban planning in Riyadh. The project spans over 135 kilometers and includes more than 4.4 million square meters of green and open spaces, along with up to 50 multi-disciplinary sports facilities with integrated infrastructure.
In 2022, the Sports Boulevard Foundation launched the Design Code for all buildings located on Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Road, emphasizing the importance of local identity and Salmani architecture, which embodies authenticity and modernity in design. The code aims to create a modern and sustainable environment that enhances the quality of life.
The Sports Boulevard is one of Riyadh’s mega projects launched by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, on March 19, 2019, and is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The project is committed to improving the quality of life for the city’s residents and visitors by offering integrated infrastructure, pedestrian pathways, cycling pathways, horse-riding trails, and more.

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Australia Weighs Tactics to Thin Crocodile Numbers

A crocodile moves from the riverbank into the waters of the Adelaide River in Wak Wak, Northern Territory, Australia, July 19, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a Reuters video. REUTERS/Stefica Nicol Bikes
A crocodile moves from the riverbank into the waters of the Adelaide River in Wak Wak, Northern Territory, Australia, July 19, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a Reuters video. REUTERS/Stefica Nicol Bikes
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Australia Weighs Tactics to Thin Crocodile Numbers

A crocodile moves from the riverbank into the waters of the Adelaide River in Wak Wak, Northern Territory, Australia, July 19, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a Reuters video. REUTERS/Stefica Nicol Bikes
A crocodile moves from the riverbank into the waters of the Adelaide River in Wak Wak, Northern Territory, Australia, July 19, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a Reuters video. REUTERS/Stefica Nicol Bikes

A mottled yellow-green and brown saltwater crocodile lies mostly submerged in the muddy waters of an Australian river, only its ochre eyes visible above a triangular snout as it scans for prey.
When just such a reptile killed Charlene O'Sullivan's daughter 15 years ago, her first thought was that every one of the predators should be killed or caught around her home city of Darwin, to spare others from similar heartbreak.
Now she prefers a less drastic safety measure: education.
"I initially probably supported removing every crocodile," said O'Sullivan, whose daughter Briony was 11 when she was taken while swimming with friends at a waterhole in 2009.
"But you remove one crocodile from a creek or a waterway, another one's just going to move in," Reuters quoted the former real estate agent as saying.
"We need to respect the environment we're in, know they are there, and think smart about what sort of situation you put yourself in."
O'Sullivan's change of heart is emblematic of a growing debate in Australia's tropical north, where unrestricted hunting nearly eradicated "salties" by about 1970, only to have strict conservation rules drive up their numbers ever since.
Now authorities are making tentative efforts - from more proactive messaging to physical removal of animals - to reduce the frequency of attacks, after 18 nationwide since the start of 2023, five of them fatal, database CrocAttack shows.
But they need to do that without threatening the survival of a species enmeshed with the economy and identity of the Top End, becoming a key part of the Northern Territory's A$1.5-billion ($980-million) tourism industry.
In the past two months, crocodiles have killed an Aboriginal girl in the Northern Territory and a doctor in the neighboring state of Queensland.
But even a modest culling quota, unveiled in April, has rattled conservationists, Aboriginal elders and owners of tourism businesses.
The government wants to rid the territory of 1,200 reptiles each year from an estimated population of 100,000, to keep numbers where they were before a free-for-all by hunters drove them below 3,000 in the period from World War Two to the 1970s.
Queensland, estimated to be home to 30,000, raised the stakes this year by saying it would try to keep the animals away by shooting them with non-fatal rubber bullets.
It demurred from a recommendation by its chief scientist three years earlier to consider catching or killing larger animals.
Allowing crocodiles free rein would lead to deaths, said Hugh Possingham, the former Queensland chief scientist, whose 2021 study targeted animals longer than 2.4 m (8 ft).
"Wiping all the crocodiles out is ridiculous as well," he added. "You're between a rock and a hard place."
Conservation authorities in Western Australia, home to several thousand saltwater crocodiles, ruled out culling, said a spokesperson, adding there was no scientific evidence that it reduced the risk of attacks.
BITING BACK
But for the Northern Territory, the setting of Australia's top-grossing movie, "Crocodile Dundee", and with the world's highest ratio of saltwater crocodiles to people, awareness campaigns alone no longer suffice, the government says.
The 250,000 people who live there could soon be outnumbered by the animals, whose numbers have exploded by 3,000% in 50 years, it says.
That rankles those who work and live near crocodiles.
"The new Northern Territory plan is entirely unnecessary, wasteful and potentially dangerous," said Brandon Sideleau of Charles Darwin University, who started the CrocAttack database.
It could even bring increased attacks, if it led the public to believe that areas previously off-limits were safe, he added.
"If it hasn't got tiles on the bottom of it, don't swim in it," is the advice Tony Blums, owner of the Original Adelaide River Jumping Crocodile Cruises, gives to visitors, adding that better public education would save more lives than culls.
Tibby Quall, an Aboriginal elder of the Dungalaba, or saltwater crocodile, clan, also opposed culling.
"It's something you live with, something that's cemented to your culture, who you are and what you are," he said.
O'Sullivan, who with her partner now runs a crocodile farm that breeds thousands of the animals for meat and skins, says the venture has helped her to better understand and respect the predator that took her daughter's life.
"I don't for a moment blame the animal for what happened," she said. "It's an animal, Briony was in the waterway, the animal did what the animal does."