Urban Sports and Culture Center Eindhoven
Space & matter was asked to do a spatial study to the possible transformation of an old energy plant in the Strijp district in Eindhoven. After the transformation the building would house a skate-hall, BMX park, boulder-gym and an institute for urban culture (art, music and dance).
Due to the solid concrete floor that divides the big hall in two stories of respectively 4,5 and 7 meters, however large the plants volume, it does not offer enough heigh spaces (6 – 8m ceilings) to fit the height requirements for all sport-clubs. Moreover, the financial ceiling drastically limits the size of interventions.
A solution was found in the simple logic that skaters/BMX-ers use floor-space and climbers use ceilings. After interviewing each party, and meticulously studying their exact programmatic and spatial needs, we made a plan to open up the concrete floor on specific locations. By these perforations the height of the ground-floor can be increased to the required 6m for climbing. At the top-level, these locations fit the ramp-parts that do not need the maximum height. The new floor forms a basic structure on which the sport clubs build their own fill-ins. After they're done constructing their sport-landscapes, no one will ever notice the interventions that we designed.
spatial conceptstudy
team
Sascha Glasl
Tjeerd Haccou
Bernat Ivars
client
City of Eindhoven
year
2010
