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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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2 Private Lunar Landers Head Toward the Moon in Roundabout Journey

The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
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2 Private Lunar Landers Head Toward the Moon in Roundabout Journey

The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
The Blue Ghost Mission 1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH

In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday for US and Japanese companies looking to jumpstart business on Earth’s dusty sidekick.
The two landers rocketed away in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the latest in a stream of private spacecraft aiming for the moon, The Associated Press reported. They shared the ride to save money but parted company an hour into the flight exactly as planned, taking separate roundabout routes for the monthslong journey.
It’s take 2 for the Tokyo-based ispace, whose first lander crashed into the moon two years ago. This time, it has a rover on board with a scoop to gather up lunar dirt for study and plans to test potential food and water sources for future explorers.
Lunar newcomer Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is flying 10 experiments for NASA, including a vacuum to gather dirt, a drill to measure the temperature below the surface and a device that could be used by future moonwalkers to keep the sharp, abrasive particles off their spacesuits and equipment.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost — named after a species of US Southeastern fireflies — should reach the moon first. The 6-foot-6-inches-tall (2-meter-tall) lander will attempt a touchdown in early March at Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain in the northern latitudes.
The slightly bigger ispace lander named Resilience will take four to five months to get there, targeting a touchdown in late May or early June at Mare Frigoris, even farther north on the moon’s near side.
“We don’t think this is a race. Some people say ‘race to the moon,’ but it’s not about the speed,” ispace’s founder CEO Takeshi Hakamada said this week from Cape Canaveral.
Both Hakamada and Firefly CEO Jason Kim acknowledge the challenges still ahead, given the wreckage littering the lunar landscape. Only five countries have successfully placed spacecraft on the moon since the 1960s: the former Soviet Union, the US, China, India and Japan.
“We’ve done everything we can on the design and the engineering,” Kim said. Even so, he pinned an Irish shamrock to his jacket lapel Tuesday night for good luck.
The US remains the only one to have landed astronauts. NASA’s Artemis program, the successor to Apollo, aims to get astronauts back on the moon by the end of the decade.
Before that can happen, “we’re sending a lot of science and a lot of technology ahead of time to prepare for that,” NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox said on the eve of launch.
If acing their respective touchdowns, both spacecraft will spend two weeks operating in constant daylight, shutting down once darkness hits.
Once lowered onto the lunar surface, ispace’s 11-pound (5-kilogram) rover will stay near the lander, traveling up to hundreds of yards (meters) in circles at a speed of less than one inch (a couple centimeters) per second. The rover has its own special delivery to drop off on the lunar dust: a toy-size red house designed by a Swedish artist.
NASA is paying $101 million to Firefly for the mission and another $44 million for the experiments. Hakamada declined to divulge the cost of ispace’s rebooted mission with six experiments, saying it's less than the first mission that topped $100 million.
Coming up by the end of February is the second moonshot for NASA by Houston-based Intuitive Machines. Last year, the company achieved the first US lunar touchdown in more than a half-century, landing sideways near the south pole but still managing to operate.