Mecanoo Architecten have designed Fontys Sports College a sports complex of 16,500 m2 with 5 sports halls, one with 400 seats, a 15 meter high climbing wall, a restaurant, a library and educational facilities as a multi media centre and a sports lab, as well as an accompanying parking garage.
From the Architects:
The first step has been made in turning the sport park into a sport estate with the new Fontys Sports College coming to Eindhoven’s Genneper Parks. Mecanoo’s design for the new Fontys Sports College creates an important link in the network of sport accommodations and facilities in Genneper Parks. Starting in 2012, 2200 students and teachers will make daily use of sports facilities in their own building, including the National Swimming Centre, the Tongelreep and the Indoor Sports Centre. Fontys Sports College, with state of the art sports facilities and a comprehensive sustainability concept, will house Fontys Sports College’s three curricula which are currently housed at the Sittard and Tilburg locations.
Mecanoo has created a social sports facility design that contributes to the vibrancy of Genneper Parks. The intelligence of this building is that most of the sports accommodations are located on the first floor. This creates not a closed off sports box, but a completely transparent ground floor which is in relationship with the environment. The compactness of the building’s layout provides the advantage of room left for a stage to the building – in the form of a plinth – inviting athletic and social encounters in the outdoors. The glass plinth gives way to a black brick façade beginning on the first floor and sculpturally building up and around the rest of the building. The literal highpoint of the building is the climbing wall which is situated at the corner of the building and acts like a beacon. A huge glass window offers a distant view of the climbers. The sports complex’s logistics are sophisticated and provide the maximum of opportunities for cross disciplinary interaction between sports and education. It is possible to see into the sports halls from the corridors, study areas, the restaurant and the entrance halls. Simultaneously, sport and education are logistically separated. The teaching functions can be sealed off so that only the sports halls are accessible, for example at sporting events or sports association gatherings. Also in the evening, the building is lively, contributing to the security of Genneper Parks.
The building is equipped with a sustainable energy system, making it largely possible to provide for its own energy. The educational features in this compact building are efficiently oriented to the north. To save on cooling, the south side features a building canopy. The energy roof makes use of solar energy. Further the excess of heat and cold of the buildings in the vicinity is being used and stored in two buffer tanks in the garage.
Project: Fontys Sports College
Designed by Mecanoo
Client: Gemeente Eindhoven, Fontys Hogescholen
Area: 16,500 m2
Location: Theo Koomenlaan, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Website: www.mecanoo.nl
