Hekma University won the third place in UNESCO's "I'm a City Changer" initiative, which was organized by the Saudi Urban Society and Future Saudi Cities and sponsored by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs . The winners were announced officially on Oct. 8 at an event held at King Abdul Aziz Historical Center in Riyadh. The Architecture Department in collaboration with students of the Visual Communication and Interior Design Departments at Dar Al-Hekma participated in the competition that was organized as part of the World Cities Day by The Future Saudi Cities Program, the Saudi Umran Society and UN Habitat, under the theme "Public Spaces for All". "Our faculty keeps pushing our students to real life experiences to get them into the real world while studying in Dar Al-Hekma University. This gives the students a feel of the competition and expectations in the real world to better adjust their own expectations. Nevertheless, Dar Al-Hekma's students more often than not find themselves on a par with the national and international standards and make us all proud of their achievements," said Dr. Suhair Hassan Al-Qurashi, president of Dar Al-Hekma. Students Afnan Hindi, Lujain Badrig, Nadine Lingawi, Suzan Ihsan, Maha Moussa, Reem Bakkar, Shomoukh AlQahtani, Dina Jamjoum, Loura Mtar and Yara Zimati won the third place in the prestigious competition. They were introduced to the competition through Dr. Richard Douzjian and Dr. Ayse Yucel who taught them one of the architecture advanced design studios. The winning proposal submitted by Dar Al-Hekma students was a project to render several kilometers of Palestine Street in Jeddah more pedestrian friendly by subdividing it into themed human-centric sections. The team worked for four months on the project that was inspired by the history of Palestine Street itself. The students chose Palestine Street because it is one of the oldest streets in Jeddah and they felt it holds a cultural, social and historical value. This project is a tool to create more active spaces made for and used by the public. Enhancing the street quality, surrounding buildings and providing street furniture are tools that provide a more usable open space and hence promoting the pedestrian movement by making people more active and involved in these spaces. Palestine Street has been associated with most of the city's residents due to its affinity to the history of Jeddah. However, as the city grew northerly, the relevance of the road became neglected. The project aims to revitalize the street and make it popular again. The Dar Al-Hekma team encountered many difficulties as well as breakthroughs. However, the toughest challenge was to incorporate all the concepts onto a single street. Also, the intervention was different and unique to every portion of the street and finding a way to unify all the strategies was another challenging task. "Winning this competition came as a surprise to me. But as soon as the excitement subsided, I felt very proud of our accomplishment. I will take this as a personal lesson to carry with me in life, which is to never give up and always strive for what you want," said Suzan Ihsan, a member of the winning team. The results of the competition were officially announced on Sept. 20.
