Press releases
Atkins designs iconic Oman sports academy - 10 December 2012
Atkins is set to take its concept design for the Sultan Qaboos Sports Academy in Muscat, Oman, through to completion after been appointed to deliver detailed design and construction supervision services.
The Sultan Qaboos Sports Academy will be a state-of-the-art complex, including 60m and 200m indoor running tracks and an indoor aquatic training centre, with Olympic-size swimming and diving pools housing spectator stands for 1,000 people.
A 3,000-seat outdoor tennis stadium will be a focal point of the design, featuring a roof structure that illuminates at night. Additional facilities will include football fields, a 400m athletics track, a tennis stadium, beach volleyball courts, a gymnasium, sports medicine centre, sports science faculty and laboratories.
Atkins’ concept designer, Rohan Thotabaduge, said: “The architecture of the scheme is considerate of the Omani culture and the local history of the area.
“The feature roof structure is designed to be a visible iconic memory of the Bousher sand dunes and will be a glowing beacon at night. Its structure will be visually prominent when viewed from the expressway and beyond, drawing the future young Omani athletes into the academy, while creating a sense of place and community appeal. It will interconnect all the buildings on the upper level, providing shade and enhancing sustainability.”
As well as being sympathetic to Omani culture, Atkins had to take into account a number of critical factors when undertaking the concept design of the academy, such as the tightly constrained site and the need for a flexible design solution. The complex will provide equal opportunity for men and women athletes.
Ends
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For more information:
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Ben Thompson
Head of communications, Middle East
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Tel: +971 55 4047
ben.thompson@atkinsglobal.com
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Notes to editors:
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Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is one of the world's leading engineering and design consultancies, employing some 17,700 people across the UK, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. It has the breadth and depth of expertise to plan, design and enable some of the world's most technically challenging and time critical infrastructure projects.
Atkins has been working in the Middle East for more than 40 years and has 11 offices throughout the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region, with more than 2,000 people.
Recent projects across the world include:
- Major infrastructure works, such as the design and programme management of the civil works for the Dubai Metro red and green lines in the UAE;
- Key rail projects – providing architectural and engineering design services on Crossrail, Europe’s biggest civil engineering project in London, UK, and designing stations, tunnelling and track systems for Gautrain, South Africa’s first high speed line;
- Renewable energy schemes - transformer platform design for the Thanet offshore wind park in the UK’s North Sea;
- High profile transport planning and urban design – our innovative scheme to deliver a diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus in London, UK, has helped tackle the problem of pedestrian crowding;
- Multidisciplinary building design – Northwood Primary School in Darlington, UK, is an exemplar project which raises standards for environmental design and community engagement.
- Multi-year architecture-engineering construction management services for the US National Park Service, including projects such as rehabilitation of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and Administrative Complex at California’s Death Valley to meet the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification standards;
- Water and environmental projects – critical programme management of storm protection works in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana in North America, providing expertise in coastal restoration, engineering, environmental and GIS support to rebuild defenses and protect habitats;
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