A Small Sustainable Sports Centre

Introduction

The seventh Commonwealth Association of Architects international student competition was for a sustainable sports centre for a poor community. It received 165 entries from 289 participating students from 46 countries, which were judged in Dhaka , Bangladesh at the end of March. For the first time, the competition was thrown open to all students world-wide, and not limited to students from Commonwealth countries.
Entrants could make their own choice of site and programme, but they were required to respond to local cultural, climatic and topographical conditions. No particular mix of activities was specified, but the centre was expected to act as a community focus as well as being a place for physical exercise.

The jury was impressed by the variety of entries, which ranged from interventions in informal rural housing settlements of poor countries to interventions in decayed areas of cities in the developed world. Particularly impressive was the range of responses to the requirement for sustainability, and to the nature of building for the poor. Looking back, though we did not make incremental development an explicit criterion, we realised that all the prize-winning schemes are capable of being built in stages, as resources and funds become available - an appropriate strategy for poor communities. Very different as they are, the winning projects respond to local conditions, use available technology and consider potential social implications and uses.
Although the jury process generated much discussion, our decisions were unanimous in every case.

Winning Schemes

First Prize (£ 2000)
Matthew Anthony French
6th Year, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Village centre, Santa Caterina Palopa, Guatemala.
From the first, this seemed to be an exemplary scheme. The remarkably picturesque site is the small village of Santa Caterina Palopa on the edge of lake Atìtlán in Guatemala overlooking a volcano. The aim was to reconnect the inhabitants of the village on the hillside to their lake, a link lost by the privatisation of the water's edge by foreigners. A central downhill axis links the traditional settlement to the water and provides an armature linking new pavilions and open spaces. Both of these are terraced into the slope, limited in size to avoid conflict with the existing village scale, and reflect local life that is largely conducted in the warm open air. The traditional link between the lake with its fishing (the town's livelihood) and the community's church in the town square is reinstated. An open marketplace is proposed, as is a communal kitchen for market food, a community room and permanent market stalls; the whole project can be organised incrementally. Buildings are multifunctional, and are intended to reinforce the community's social patterns.
Sustainability is to be achieved by adapting traditional adobe building methods; earth building is to be reinforced against the very common earthquakes by the author's experimental method of reinforcement using old car tyres. Passive ventilation and natural lighting are used throughout, with wooden louvres at roof level to enable stack ventilation and diffuse daylight; thick walls have high thermal capacity and insulation. At urban level, sustainable measures include a communal recycling area and a natural filtering system for water flowing through terraced reed beds down to the lake.
The only problem the jury could see with this very thoughtful project was that the open recreation area was not fenced so, for instance, football threatens to become an aquatic sport.

Second prize (£800)
Kim, Rock Young, Shin Dong-Han
Senior year, Inha University , South Korea
Local centres, Sibjeong Dong Bupyung Gu, Incheon , Korea
The proposal for sports facilities in a poor district of the city of Incheon is based on what the authors call 'polys': small units that offer different kinds of sport and community facilities. No form of construction is specified, so recycled materials can be used whenever possible and appropriate, though clearly wood or steel could be used for the frames, and standard sidings could create the enclosures; containers are another obvious starting point for construction. A further aim is to work with the very dense but almost random urban grain, so a poly may be built on the ground, over a roof, or even half way up an existing building.
Polys vary greatly in size and function. In almost every case, a community or education room is incorporated, usually at first floor level. The smallest simply offer a running machine and weight lifting apparatus, while the largest has a playing field for basketball and soccer with associated changing facilities. One of the aims of the programme is to create a degree of coherence and visual hierarchy in the very confusing urban texture, so the largest poly is intended to be a central landmark for the neighbourhood and visible from the smaller ones, generating a kind of urban order. In the hope of increasing the popularity of sport, it is possible to see into each poly from the street and see neighbours exercising, emphasising how easy it is to take part.
Clearly, a good deal more work is needed on the project to make it realisable, but the unusual approach to urban planning, to recycling and to the very poorest and least empowered members of a consumer society convinced the jury that the project should be premiated.

Equal Third Prize (£200)
Ryan Goldring
(2nd Year, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa )
Local centre, Alexandria Settlement, Sandton, Johannesburg
Working with individuals in the very poor and densely packed Alexandria community, the author evolved a strategy for building a modest new gym to form an extension to an existing one that was erected by a young local entrepreneur. So Jackson 's house will be removed, and he will go and live in a new dwelling created over Sipho's, creating a void into which the new building can be slotted. Its ground floor houses heavy weight-lifting equipment, while the first floor is devoted to dance and aerobic classes.
Analysis of building methods in the informal housing of Alexandria revealed a vigorous vernacular created with readily available materials. So a proprietary walling system that uses cement and local river sand provides the basic structure, while the roof is of traditional corrugated steel on roof sheeting angle irons. Windows are covered in steel mesh.
The jury was impressed by the designer's familiarity with local society and its building methods, and the way in which that knowledge has been used to create a practicable and economically viable centre, but some jurors had reservations about the amount of thought given to sustainable issues.

Equal Third Prize (£200 + £200 bonus for team work )
Gergely Baumann, Attila Cselovski, Loltan Palyik, Bence Pottyondy, Gabor Somogy
3rd Year, Hungarian Szemt Istvan University , Hungary
Inner city sports centre, Pest , Hungary
The old Jewish quarter of Pest is one of the largest and most complete in Europe , but it is greatly decayed. Planning for the area included many demolition proposals, but the team believes that as much as possible should be preserved, and the old street pattern preserved. Their site is a ruined, floorless and roofless thermal bath, the ground level of which is now used as a car park. Central to the project is the notion that the old pool should be reinstated, which it is at high level. The parking is replaced by soccer and basketball pitches.
To ensure an income for the owner and help fund the sports centre, an automated car wall is proposed in which almost twice as many cars can be parked as at present. Income is increased by making a public laundry on the site which is heated, like the other enclosed spaces, by geothermal energy, for which Pest has long been famous. At ground level, lockers and lavatories are provided for contesting teams. Above, exhibition galleries, cafes and other public rooms, created as prefabricated boxes, are supported by the old perimeter walls and by neighbouring buildings.
The jury welcomed this project as one of the few that attempted to cope with a decayed inner city site, but some jurors had reservations about the practicality of the applied boxes, particularly in terms of access. Yet the scheme had a coherence and confidence that earned it the bonus of £200 for good team work.

Prize for first or second year student (£200)
Justin Ray Otten,
2nd Year, University of Witwatersrand , South Africa
Local centre, Alexandria Settlement, Sandton, Johannesburg
The programme for this scheme is identical to the one for Ryan Goldring's equal third prize, but the strategy is different. The new gym is to be created over an existing house using a steel frame. Simple tip-up shutters cover openings, allowing the new space to respond to time of day and weather. The scheme is competent, but did not win a prize because little attention is paid to sustainability and the steel frame is conventional and likely to be beyond the means of the community.

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