Hasta La Ideas

Portuguese architect Álvaro Fernandes Andrade has completed a training facility for Olympic-standard rowers where angular white volumes snake across a tiered landscape of grassy slopes and dry-stone walls (+ slideshow).

The Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing is located in Portugal’s Douro Valley, a wine region that is classified as a World Heritage Site, so Andrade designed a structure with most of its body buried underground.

The building is divided into three zones that each accommodate different activities. The first and largest section is the accommodation, which comprises a total of 130 dormitories that stagger down the hillside.

The other two sections are labelled as “social” and “training” and are housed within the white-rendered concrete blocks that jerk across the surface of the complex like a huge faceted serpent.

“The two more dynamic and productive major areas impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures,” said the architect.

The entrance to the complex sits within a sunken tunnel. This runs parallel with the rows of staggered dormitories, which are revealed above ground as descending roof terraces with long narrow skylights.

“Terraces and clusters of buildings, abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are all covered here in order to meet the needs of the program,” said Andrade.

Communal areas where resident athletes can relax are located at the highest point of the hillside to allow views out over the scenic countryside, while training and workout areas are tucked away behind.

Currently the facility accommodates training for up to 130 people, but could be extended in the future to allow this number to increase to 220.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description written by Álvaro Fernandes Andrade and translated into English by Jed Barahal:

High Performance Rowing Centre, Pocinho, Foz Coa, Portugal

Memory

The guiding principles and strategies of the project for the Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing play their part in a dense and inextricable mixture that includes the peculiarities and identity of a pre-existing, specific “place”, the characteristics and demands of a very recent program, and the needs and wants of the architectural act.

If we fall back on references that are closest to us, such as Fernando Tavora (with whom I was lucky to have studied in my first year of college, the last year he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto), along with all that Siza Vieira thought and said (a lot) and wrote (not a lot, but much better designed and engineered), we need to appreciate the various meanings contained within this “place”, in particular as a cultural “thing” and, most notably here, the landscape of the Douro River Valley as a World Heritage Site, and the specific ancestral expression of man’s intervention and transformation of the landscape.

For the demands of a very recent program, as is this case of a complex developed specifically for training and preparing high performance, Olympic level athletes, there is no or very little “historical precedent to put the words in the mouth of the president,” as Sting put it a few years ago. For architects, in general, this only makes the challenge of the project more exciting. This case was no different.

As regards the needs and wants of designing (as if architecture were not also a conscious act of will and innovation), they in turn also played out within “pre-existing” requisites (such as ensuring “Mobility and Accessibility for All”, and the essential values of “Sustainable Development”), and those that materialised during the design process, such as the problem of taking on a large program (8,000 m2/84 rooms/approx. 130 users), with the prospect of future expansion (up to 11,500m2/170 rooms/approx. 225 users) in a possible subsequent expansion phase of the housing area, without a significant impact on size and the landscape.

In the resulting complex interaction, the decision to structure the program in three fundamental components (Social Zone, Housing Zone and Training Zone) merges with the (re-)interpretation of two elements of secular construction of the Douro landscape: the ubiquitous terracing, a recurring form of “inhabiting” this markedly sloping valley (read here “inhabit ” as “extracting bread from the earth”), and the large white bulks of the buildings set in the landscape, in particular of the large wine-producing estates, formally complex and varying in size (often resulting from building over a long period of time, due to successive changes in the requirements of working the land).

Between them we find terraces and clusters of buildings (often between them and the river as well), abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are covered here in order to meet the needs of the program.

But the choice of structuring/separating the program into three distinct zones is also a help in the effort to place the most-used zones on the same level, while minimising eventual movements between levels, something that surely will not be foreign to the history of physical and spatial transformation of this valley, which we are only trying to reinterpret.

The above is also an expression of the typical understanding of the history of architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto… not as an end in itself, but as one more element brought to the drawing board/computer, in coordination with other design problems.

Concurrently, the set of aforementioned options, accepted or adopted, allowed for a more organised coordination of the principles of passive management of the building’s energy. In the housing area, used for longer periods of time with less physical activity, the “skin” exposed to the elements has been limited , and the structures leant up against and dug into the ground (as the Eskimos do with their igloos). Rooftop greenery reinforces this insulation. Complementing the use of passive solar energy, the rooms have skylights facing south, in search of the sun, taking into account the general Northern exposure of the entire complex. The walls of the rooms, in naked concrete, reinforce simultaneously the meaning of “land”, “home”, of protection, of this component of the program, and allow for optimal storage of solar thermal energy captured through the skylights which, during the heat of the Douro summer, are shaded from the outside.

As a bonus, stars can be seen from the beds. And in conjunction with the necessary windows and welcome natural light in the halls leading to the rooms, we have made it possible that, from outside, the shale terraces and what covers them “float”, consciously rejecting any direct imitation. Even the irregularity of the plans of the housing area, rather than contributing to the “irony” of imitation, serves the relationship between a systematic and repetitive component of the program (the rooms cells), and the need for close proximity of these with other areas, whether for servicing the rooms themselves (kitchenettes, small social areas, laundry rooms for individual use, etc.) or for services such as machinery, equipment, storage, etc. This irregularity has a role in the interplay between repetition and identity, fragmenting the protracted spaces and long visually undifferentiated corridors, punctuating them with limits of perspective and unique spaces as they expand.

However, even considering the above, this combination of conditions and design options does not prevent the quantitatively most significant component of the program from being “diluted” into the land/landscape, and the future expansion of the desired number of rooms at the centre from being carried out without major disruptions to the general logic of the project (also because the whole project has been developed taking into account the prospect of maximum use of the land).

It may be added, in reference to this component of the program, that in spite of the limited size of the housing area, all of the rooms built at the level of the access hall can be used by athletes in wheelchairs. Just by removing and placing the supports in the bathrooms of these rooms, athletes with physical constraints may choose their rooms, and they can lodge in the same areas as the rest of their team, without having to be relegated to some convenient corner, in rooms “for the disabled”.

Having defined the structures and the contours of the land, the site and the programmatic component of “lodging”, the two other more dynamic and “productive” major areas (Social Zone and Training Zone), impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures.

Adopting a language and expressiveness of their own, and emerging as the most visible components of the project, they express the meaning of project and transformation, in contrast with the “shyness” of the terraces. Developed in conjunction with research on the characteristics and physical needs of each of the programmatic components, they emphasise the particularities of the relationship of these with the setting.

The communal areas for rest and relaxation take over the higher levels and look out over the countryside. Turning their backs to these are the training and workout areas, in an attempt to reflect the logic of effort and concentration that high performance athletes know so well.

Along with these particularities, they also foster different interactions with the previously outlined principles, in interdependent relationships of cause and effect. Formal complexity coordinates the development of a specific image with, for example, the freedom to control solar exposure through windows between summer and winter, or from east to west. In other words, the ostensible randomness of shape actually guarantees direct exposure to the winter sun through glass, as well as shade from the excruciating heat of summer. An effort was made to insure respect for the particularities of this system of construction, an element that is inseparable from questions of language that come into play. With a system of construction that includes facades and ventilated rooftops, double thermal insulation, and a system of “dry-wall construction”, we have attempted to equate questions of sustainable development, allowing, for example, for the disassembly and recycling of materials at the end of their life cycle.

An engaging and exciting challenge for the architect, the centre was also a challenge in investigation of the forms and processes of the integration of the specificity of “new” themes, such as accessibility and sustainability, which we seek to define, indefinitely, as… architecture. Only architecture. Without labels. Without adding labels that only lessen it, such as “environmental”, “green”, “accessible”, or “sustainable”. If there is anything missing from this work of architecture, it is those who, I think, architects really work for: the people who will use it.

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snakes across a landscape of underground dorms appeared first on Dezeen.

Faceted concrete blocks protrude from one side of this sports hall in Croatia, while its bumpy southern and western walls were made by casting concrete panels over a bed of stones (+ slideshow).

Designed by Croatian architect Idis Turato, the building is located in the small town of Krk, on the island of the same name, and it functions as both a sports hall for a primary school and an events space for the local community.

The building sits within a new public square surrounded by a mixture of churches, monasteries and school buildings, and the architect created different concepts for each of the building’s elevations to correspond with the varying architectural styles.

“One of the direct inspirations for all the facades and external walls of the hall were the existing walls of the surrounding monasteries,” Turato told Dezeen.

“The wall is the main concept of the hall, being different regarding the context that is in front of it,” he continued. “Each one of those monastery walls, dating back from different periods, have different textures and also different sizes.”

The northern side of the building fronts the town square and features a faceted concrete surface with a terrazzo finish and sliced openings that form windows.

“The monoliths on the facade that face the square are monumental and dominant,” said the architect. “They accentuate the representative character of the newly formed large public square in town, and are a direct reply towards the high towers on the square.”

The southern and western facades are built over the archeological remains of another monastery and a chapel, which were uncovered during the construction process. These dry stone walls informed the design of the new concrete elevations built on top, which were cast against small stones to create a textured surface that inverts the appearance of the existing structures.

“These ‘concrete innards’, as we call them, are a negative of the dry stone walls,” explained Turato. “Our wish was to make contemporary but simple concrete prefabricates that are visually different and recognisable, but also blend in as a continuation of the existing walls and their textures.”

The remaining elevation faces the school and is finished in white render to match the appearance of its neighbour, which was designed by Idis Turato a few years earlier.

The interior of the building is decorated in bold colours that stand out against the raw concrete interior. A first-floor balcony provides seating during matches and events, plus an underground tunnel creates a private route into the school.

Slabs of red terrazzo provide the surface of the surrounding square, intended to contrast with the pale colour of the concrete walls.

Here’s a project description from Turato Architecture:

Sports Hall and Public Square in Krk

One of the main focuses of the Turato Architects’ Hall and Square project in Krk was to finish an architectural dialogue started way back in 2005, when Idis Turato completed an elementary school, Fran Krsto Frankopan (with his former studio “Randić Turato”).

The new hall, which opened shortly before the summer of 2013, is situated in the very vicinity of the above-mentioned school, just across a narrow pedestrian street. The completion of the new sports building and public square was a crown achievement of the architect’s quest to complete an integral urban ensemble on top of Krk’s old town, thereby creating a newly defined focal point of high importance.

The newly built hall, aside from being a gym facility for the school pupils – who can now easily access it through an underground corridor – aims to meet demands of the local community as well, housing sports events as well as future cultural activities and public festivities on a larger scale. This is the reason why the north-eastern corner of the hall’s facade opens up onto the square, providing functional continuity of passing through and enabling them to become almost one.

The school-hall-square assembly is surrounded by several churches and monasteries, as well as by two tall church towers that act as the square’s vertical accents. Together, they all define and describe this wide public space, which, depending on occasion, can function both as a secular and an ecclesiastical pedestrian zone.

On the very site of the new hall there used to be an old student dorm, which had been used in past as a gym facility for the school. Prior to the hall construction it had to be demolished. The demolition, however, unearthed several new and important archaeological discoveries on the site, thus creating a whole new context for the hall itself.

All that had been found on the site had to be preserved as discovered. The architects took this fact to be crucial in redefining the concept according to the new input. This affected directly the very organisational scheme of the project. The excavated and preserved church and monastery walls were to become integral parts of the new building, with new walls and facades of the hall emerging directly from the restored, older ones.

Yet another contextual element was important in forming the shape and size of the building. These are the high walls, seen throughout the old town of Krk, especially around the aforementioned monasteries, enclosing the town lots, lining the narrow streets of the town. These site-specific structures surround the hall itself as well.

Behind these walls different stories are taking place daily, balancing between the public and the private, depending on the usage of the space enclosed. The high walls of the western hall facade, next to the Franciscan monastery, are then but a continuation of these town alleys. This is where the story of the walls, their origin, context and their shape began, resulting in variety of the facade walls, formally corresponding to the context, input and location.

Although seemingly set “back”, on secondary surfaces (the western alley and southern facade), the most recognisable and by far the most unique element of the hall itself is a wall consisting of original and striking prefabricated concrete elements. The architect named these the innards due to their origin and their fabrication, and the ambiguity of the impression they leave upon the viewer, due to a formal factor of its (un)attractiveness.

The innards are in fact unique precast elements produced as a negative of a dry stone wall, or more precisely – made by placing stones in a wooden mould, covering them with a PVC foil and pouring concrete over it all. In this way the negative of the stones forms the “face” of the precast element. This inverse building process, a simple and basic fabrication with a distinct visual impact, is an invention of the hall’s author. It happened as a result of researching simple building materials with a crafty bricklayer, with whom the architect had collaborated on several projects in the past as well.

On the other hand, the most representative facade of the hall, the one visually dominating the square, is the facade constructed out of six impressively large concrete monoliths, weighing up to 23 tons. The monolithic blocks are finished off with a layer of ‘terrazzo’, which is an ancient technique usually used for floor finishes, requiring hours of polishing by hand.

Here, however, the terrazzo is redefined and used vertically, fittingly renamed into a “vertical terrazzo”. While this sudden vertical use of the finish creates a shiny and finely shaded facade, its “normal” use, on horizontal surfaces, is recontextualised and rethought once again, since this finish, usually ‘reserved’ for interiors, is now used for exterior surfaces of the public square.

The red colour of the square’s terrazzo floor panels is in contrast to the lightness of the hall’s facade. Its smoothness and slip-resistance is achieved by application of a layer of epoxy after polishing.

The fourth facade, facing the school, with its formal look and finish (done in plaster lime mortar) confirms that the new building remains in a direct communication with the existing educational facility, sharing its function.

The post Concrete-clad sports hall by Idis Turato
features both faceted and bumpy facades appeared first on Dezeen.

Copper-clad panels behind the glazed facade of this gymnasium by French firm LAN Architecture produce tinted reflections of the surrounding buildings (+ slideshow).

Paris studio LAN Architecture was also responsible for redeveloping the surrounding historic central square of Chelles, France, where the introduction of the L-shaped gymnasium alters the route between a park and the existing buildings.

“The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall,” the architects point out. “In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey.”

Full-height glass panels covering the gymnasium’s facade create refracted reflections that reduce the visual impact of the monolithic form and help to integrate it into its milieu.

Avoiding any typical sporting references on the building’s exterior, the architects instead created “a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.”

Behind the glass, timber panels clad externally in copper add depth and warmth to the reflections, while helping to dampen echoes inside the sports hall.

The panels also act as sunscreens, allowing daylight to filter through the staccato gaps along their top edges. When the sports hall is illuminated at night, light emanates from this upper section.

The smaller end of the L-shaped building houses offices, logistics, service spaces and smaller activity rooms with views into the main hall.

Other sports halls on Dezeen include a sunken building by BIG with an arching roof that acts as a hilly outdoor courtyard and a sports centre in the Netherlands covered in fluorescent panels.

LAN Architecture have designed an archives centre with earth-coloured walls covered in steel studs that blends into its rural environment, an apartment development with adaptable balconies in Bordeaux and a black-painted concrete headquarters for a packaging manufacturer in Paris.

See more sports centres »
See more LAN Architecture »

Photography is by Julien Lanoo. See more photographs by Lanoo on Dezeen.

Here’s a project description from LAN:

LAN: Gymnasium and Town Hall esplanade

The agora

The design of the gymnasium and the square of central Chelles was an opportunity to use an architectural project to address urban issues that have been left aside in past developments.

The plot is indeed in a central position between the Park of Remembrance Emile Fouchard, the town hall, the Weczerka high school and the centre for contemporary art “les églises”: a highly heterogeneous environment where all the symbols and powers of the city (the church, State, culture, education and sports) are concentrated.

All these components, in this case, seem more juxtaposed than actually ordered, despite the delicate intervention by Marc Barani and Martin Szekely transforming the two churches into a center of contemporary art.

The aim of this project is to replay this rescheduling, elevating it into the category of an agora. The space, therefore, was in need of a strategic, volumetric insertion and an idea, contributing to the completion of the history and a new perception of the whole.

Urban role of the new building

Based on this observation, we considered the project as an operation of urban reassembly in which the gym and esplanade play the role of articulation. We relied on a detailed analysis of the operation, sequences and the scales of the various components.

The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall. In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey. These public spaces, the piazza and the new pedestrian street, are drawn in a conventional manner: regular, surrounded and defined by buildings. An urban object, a “catalyst” of views.

Once the volumes were constructed, the challenge of the architectural project has resided in the renewal of the traditional vocabulary of the gym: very often, we deal with an opaque box, blind and deaf to the context in which it occurs.

Here, we had to escape from the imagery related to sports facilities to implement an object which “lets us see” a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.

To this end, the facade is composed of two layers, the first (the glass) reflecting and letting in light, and the second (the copper), coloring and magnifying the reflection, providing protection from glass impacts.

While the simple shape and the orthogonal location of the building allows to order spaces, the facades create an ambiguity emptying the building of its materiality, making it disappear. The whole gives an impression of lightness and magic. At night, the game is reversed.

The gym, with its style and footprint, aims to be the symbol of a new vision of the city.

Internal organization

Once the urban strategy and the treatment of the facades were defined, the simplicity of the volumes allowed to turn the spatial organization of the gym into an efficient and functional area.

The technical system used for the envelope is simple: a steel structure, the bottom of the glass facades made of a concrete wall insulated by an indoor copper cladding. This double skin provides an ideal sound insulation. The copper, plated on timber, absorbs noise and reduces resonance in high volume areas such as multisport halls. The realization of this project is also a good example of an eco-construction. A project based on the logic of eco-construction

Thermal insulation

Ranked at the Very High Energy Performance (THPE) level, the building ensures a high level of comfort thanks to the inertia of its insulated concrete walls that contribute to cooling in summer and limited heat loss in winter. It is reinforced by the presence of night ventilation in the spaces. The system used consists of a power plant processing dual-flow air recovering energy from exhaust air. Each façade is equipped with a glazing area of 2.28 m2, STADIP 44.2 “securit” type, on the external side and tempered glass (8 mm), with a 14mm argon heat-resistant blade.

Heating
The site is directly connected to the city’s geothermal heat network. A heating programmer prior to space occupancy is also implemented. The heat distribution ensures the needs of hot water and heating the gym, an extension, changing rooms and circulation spaces.

Electricity

Thirty-two photovoltaic modules with an output of 7360 Watts, or 6600 VA for resale to EDF, have been installed.

Water management
Outside, the rainwater recovery system works together with the green roof. It supplies the gymnasium’s sanitary areas and the surrounding greenery.

Lighting

The building receives natural light through large windows on the curtain wall and roof. It is emphasized by the external presence of a LED light recessed floor. The access points are marked by candelabra. Presence detectors are being used in all interiors, except for the great hall, optimizing power management based on attendance.

Programme: Gymnasium and redesign of the Town Hall square
Client: City of Chelles
Location: Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Chelles (77)
Budget: Gymnasium: € 4,34 M. excl. VAT, Esplanade € 967,000 excl. VAT.
Project area: Gymnasium 2 322 m², Esplanade 2,857 m²
Completion: Gymnasium: January 2012 Esplanade: October 2012
Team: LAN Architecture (lead architect), BETEM (TCE), Isabelle Hurpy (HEQ)

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in Chelles by LAN Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Huge clerestory windows reveal the exposed timber frame of this school sports hall in Kobe, Japan, by architecture firm Takenaka Corporation (+ slideshow).

Entitled Harmonie Hall, the building functions as both a basketball court and auditorium for the Kobe International Junior High School and Senior High School, and was designed by Takenaka Corporation to fit in with the wood and concrete buildings that already made up the campus.

“This building is designed to capture the most from the rich surrounding environment while inheriting the formal language of the campus as it exists today,” says the architect.

A 46 metre-long wall of uninterrupted concrete lines the north elevation. Narrow lengths of glazing run along its top and bottom, bringing light through to the floor and ceiling of the hall.

Larger windows span the southern elevation so that students elsewhere on the campus can catch a glimpse of activities taking place inside, while students inside can look out towards the surrounding woodland.

“Through the framing of landscape views, the beautiful surroundings engage with the space and offer openness by using the trees and sky to highlight the structural frame,” explains the architect.

Structural timber columns are positioned along this facade to take some of the vertical load from the wooden roof, which protrudes over the edges of the walls.

Toilets, storage areas and a teacher’s office occupy a small annex with a connecting corridor.

Other sports halls we’ve featured on Dezeen include one with bright yellow spectator stands and one with a fluorescent facade.

See more sports halls »
See more architecture in Japan »

Photography is by Tomoki Hahakura, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Photograph by Yasutaka Inazumi

Here’s more information from Takenaka Corporation:

Harmonie Hall, Kobe International Junior & Senior High School

Design Intent

The Kobe International Junior High School and Senior High School Harmonie Hall was based on an idea of a clear and open axial plan utilising concrete and wood to respond to the campus’ history while creating a new relationship with the natural landscape. Harmonie Hall is an ancillary facility that includes a teacher’s room, storage, toilets, and a gymnasium that can be used as both a basketball court and an auditorium.

This building is designed to capture the most from the rich surrounding environment while inheriting the formal language of the campus as it exists today. Functionally, gyms tend to be enclosed spaces removed from their surrounding environment, but this time, by utilising a wood structural frame, the building is in concert with the vibrant local environment as much as possible.

The south side leads to an existing building and is comprised of a long 20m wood structural span for views of the woodlands supported by a 6m high and 46m long concrete wall. Opening the building to the lush ecosystem of the north campus was a natural configuration.

By supporting the horizontal force with concrete walls on three sides, with the north side being the exception, the structural roof frame was designed to transfer vertical load to the wooden poles on the north facade.

The north side is a rich and open ecosystem. Through the framing of landscape views, the beautiful surroundings engage with the space and offer openness by using the trees and sky to highlight the structural frame. From the beginning, the design has been interested in offering the experience of simultaneous continuity between the paired horizontal open spaces.

Furthermore, by providing a sufficient aperture to the wind and natural landscape, a space filled with light and consistent breezes from the north is realised.

Also, by using vegetation identified from research and field surveys, trees are transplanted from the construction staging areas while simultaneously cultivating local seeds as a means to visually and biologically produce a landscape of continuity with the local context.

The idea for using structure to maximise openness to the surrounding environment, both conceptually and visually, marries the wind and light of the natural environment with the new space. The environment is the architecture.

Site and Context

The context for this project was a combined junior and high school located in the peaceful hills overlooking Suma with a view of the Akashi Straits and Awaji Island. This school was established in 1992 with aims to foster women with prolific knowledge and grace, and the campus has since been designed with the theme that the campus has made an impression on their memory. The exposed concrete of the design provides a sense of integration with the campus which includes many memorable places.

The existing school buildings, located on the north-south and east-west axes, consist of just two basic geometric shapes, the square and the circle, and were built of exposed concrete. This prompt for this project was to build a gymnasium the size of a basketball court for the 20th anniversary. For this project, I tried to create a new gymnasium, on the angle shaped site located in the west part of the campus, that was in harmony, to the greatest degree possible, with the surrounding environment. The junior high school building has a circular hall in the centre which is surrounded by open related rooms. This memorable hall within the square shaped form is inserted into the hill, but for this project I aimed to create memorable places between this building and the hills.

The post Harmonie Hall by
Takenaka Corporation appeared first on Dezeen.

This black and blue sports centre in Western Australia was designed by ARM Architecture as a pixellated cluster of chunky cubes (+ slideshow).

Located beyond the Australian outback in the remote town of Port Hedland, the stadium is named Wanangkura, which translates as “whirlwind” in the aboriginal Kariyarra language. ARM Architecture‘s Sophie Cleland compares the building to the cyclones that occur intermittently in the region and says that it creates a “shimmering, rippling effect on an otherwise flat landscape”.

The building occupies one slice of an elliptical site on the edge of the town and contains a 400-seat games court, two squash courts, a gym and a series of changing rooms and event spaces. The rest of the site is taken up by three new outdoor courts for netball and basketball, plus the existing Kevin Scott cricket oval.

The brightly coloured cubes surround the curved outer facade. An arched opening leads through the outer wall and towards the entrance, where the cubes change colour from blue to orange, while inside the building a grid of squares also decorates the walls of the stadium.

Strips of lighting are attached to the external walls to allow the building to glow after dark.

Other unusual sports centres on Dezeen include a climbing centre with a windowless yellow facade and an indoor football ground in a converted warehouse. See more sports centres.

Photography is by Peter Bennetts.

Here’s some more information from ARM Architecture:

Wanangkura Stadium is Port Hedland’s new multi‐purpose recreational centre. The name for the centre was chosen from hundreds of local submissions and means ‘whirlwind’ in the local Kariyarra language. The title pays tribute to the centre’s design, which architect Sophie Cleland likened to a cyclonic pattern, creating a ‘shimmering, rippling effect on an otherwise flat landscape’. Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett called the Centre ‘… a spectacular piece of architecture that will become a landmark for Hedland’.

Located in Western Australia’s northern Pilbara region, Port Hedland is highest tonnage port in Australia, with global links to China, Europe and Japan. It is also a place of extreme climatic conditions with seasonal cyclonic periods and extreme temperatures during summer. Managing these conditions becomes a challenge for architecture, with buildings designed to withstand cyclonic conditions to Region D category 2. The mining industry also dominates the landscaping and operations and the town, providing a large fly‐in fly‐out population.

The main gateway into the town is through the air; not roads. The town is located at the top western end of Western Australia and is surrounded by a sea of red earth at the edge of the Pilbara in town infamous for Australia’s iron ore exports. Flying several hours across the desert of the Australia outback you see a town come into view that has a suburban domestic like quality with a urban layout would be familiar in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. The bright green grass of the ovals are clearly the most identifying features. This ‘gateway’ provided the first primary view of the Wanangkura Stadium and the approximately 3500 square meter roof which makes a significant feature in the landscape. We chose to treat the roof as another façade and wanted to celebrate the local club football team The South Hedland Swans whose team colours are black and white by creating giant stripes in the roof profile. This creates an impressive view from above but is also an important feature from the oval as the roof is clearly visible from the ground and oval perimeter.

The project site is located at the Kevin Scott Oval on the fringe of South Hedland’s flood plain. It is a significant destination point for major sports and social gatherings for the local community and fly‐in fly‐out workers. ARM was engaged to design a scheme for the multipurpose sports facility, concurrently with the masterplanning for the surrounding playing fields for future expansion. The main building houses a new indoor playing court, a gym, squash courts, club rooms for local football teams and upper level function rooms. Adjacent to the main building are outdoor playing courts for netball and basketball.

Our approach to the design considered this building as a mirage – a shimmering, rippling effect on an otherwise flat landscape. Using a ‘halftone’ pixelated technique, the buildings entry facade acts as a clear visual image from long distances, whilst being highly agitated on closer inspection. The opposite side faces the Kevin Scott oval, accommodating related facilities along the oval, including a spectator’s stand, change rooms and spectator suites.

In preparing the concept design, ARM first visited the site and met with Council and project stakeholders, which included different sporting groups and community members. The design had to work hard to meet the requirements of each sporting code, while also taking advantage of opportunities for efficiency, such as sharing change rooms. Circulation and access needed to consider the varying requirements of spectators, employees, paying members, and local and visiting sports teams.

The Wanangkura Stadium is an excellent example of the advantage offered by ARM’s unique design approach. Our clients in Port Hedland knew it would be difficult to create an ‘iconic’ building within the restrictions of their location, climate and budget. With lateral thinking and innovation, we proved that something more was possible.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: roof plan – click for larger image

Above: section east to west – click for larger image

Above: east elevation – click for larger image

Above: north elevation – click for larger image

Above: west elevation – click for larger image

The post Wanangkura Stadium
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