Sports hall in three sections with (permanent) spectator stand.
The sports hall of an integrated comprehensive school was to be built in a peripheral area of the town of Pfungstadt.
In 2008 the tender, offered EEA-wide, unanimously selected METARAUM for this project. Completion of the hall was scheduled for 2011, but lack of clarification of the financing for individual areas of the building between the district and the city authorities led to numerous changes to the planning of primary functions and resulted ultimately in three different building applications being submitted in succession. This significantly delayed the planning and realisation of the project, such that the finished hall could not be handed over to the awarding authority until the spring of 2018.
Despite these unfavourable conditions, particularly difficult for a competition design, it was possible to retain the originally developed idea, in its principal, conceptual aspects, all the way to the completion of the project, exactly 10 years after the end of the competitive process.
In this urban periphery with its heterogeneous structure and loosely occupied commercial development sites, there were effectively no ‘anchor points’ in terms of urban development to give form and orientation for a new construction. For the architects this meant that the new building, in order to assert itself and to be seen as a uniquely recognisable strong and elegant solitary structure within these surroundings, would have to be developed and conceived more as a precisely landed ‘property’ than just another hall structure within this industrial environment.
The hall is located across the Mainstrasse towards the school opposite and is so intended to be seen as part of the school grounds, despite the industrial surroundings.
On this arterial road into the town, the widely protruding roof acts as a prominent outward signet to represent the building’s function as a venue for public events; the strong, clear shape of the roof lends the building a recognisable ‘face’ and makes for an effective sign even from a distance.
The sports hall is divided into two sections: the ‘sunken ground floor’ playing field area with ancillary spaces in exposed concrete, and the ‘suspended’ structure above it in steel and glass.
Roof and wall flow into each other and form ONE combined element, and this further strengthens the character of the building as an ‘object’.
To give expression to the purpose of the building as a sports venue, the ‘soft’ finish of a sports shoe has been selected as the look and feel of the hall, whose nubs, corrugations and curves are interpreted and implemented architectonically, both in terms of their structural aspects and as regards the choice of materials and colours.
Material Used :
- support structure: box sections of steel
- suspended ceiling: expanded metal
- facade panels (diamond-shaped panels): StoVentec SmartFlex; Sto SE & Co. KGaA
- skylights: Jet-Top 90 Lichtkuppel; Jet RaWa GmbH
- glass facade, steel supporting construction: Raico Therm+ S-I, Raico Bautechnik GmbH
- Roof seal and welding lanes: Soprema-Klewa GmbH
- door closers: GEZE GmbH, Leonberg
- fire and smoke protection doors: Forster Profilsysteme AG
- protective walls: KNEITSCHEL GMBH & CO. KG
- separation curtains: SWS Systemtechnik GmbH & Co. KG
- sports floor: TOP-Sport GmbH
- sportsfloor covering: Forbo Flooring GmbH, Forbo Marmoleum Sport
