Architectural Competition for the Open Sports Center of the Mesa Geitonia Municipality
Participation 2005
(In collaboration with Filios Charalambides Architects)
The sports center of Mesa Geitonia must play a sporting and social role. Athletic activity should be the basis for creating social relationships and entertainment. The architectural proposal aspires to give space and shelter to this dual property of the sports center.
Central concept - Spatial planning.
Along the motorway and tangent along the safety line of the power cables there is a course (pedestrian street) that is the functional and semi-autonomous space editor of the traffic. This course takes all the access to the sports center and distributes the movements to all the functional units that make up it.
Accesses
The main access to the sports center is from the road to the west through the square that is an integral part of the natatorium and is connected vertically to the pedestrian walkway.
Functional organization
The cafeteria-restaurant is autonomous from the sports facilities so that it can serve the whole audience, to be placed itself in a space worthy of its operation, to become viable and can serve more hours in order to become an important recreation area for the whole sports center and the wider region.
In order for the swimming pool to be used by the general public, alongside organized sports, a second swimming pool is proposed with varying depths, as well as separate changing rooms with an outdoor bar in direct connection with the cafeteria.
The athletes' spaces of the swimming pool are fully autonomous with a separate entrance from the square and a direct exit near the diving points. A gym is considered necessary for the needs of the athletes.
Architectural composition and morphology
A shell that tends to take the form of a drop of water when it is reposited between two boundaries above the natatorium's main pool to materialize and cover the spectators' space on one side and to create a viewing eye(in section) for competition judges, journalists, lighting operators and installations. With the space construction being displayed in between, as no cover is required, to show the possibilities of metal in covering large openings in the shape of a curvilinear truss structure in organic form. The shell, supported by thin columns, rises from the ground, leaving the space of the swimming pool down from it flowing freely and unifying with the square.
The square adjoining the main road access to the west, covered by the stage stands, creates an original semi-open space for social gatherings and correlations. It functions as a semi-outdoor foyer of the swimming pool for the gathering of the fans and their climbing in the stands, with the athletes entering from one side and with its vertical connection on the other side with the pedestrian walkway and the cafe.
The cafeteria, located alongside the motorway, almost floating on its supports, aspires, with its elongated shape, to travel the people between fantasy and reality, looking at one side, the activities of the swimming pool and the sports center, while from the other, over the green space will read the highway lights in the evenings.
A small tower that interferes with the main course in order to disrupt, by emphasizing its vertical dimension, the horizontal flow of the other architectural elements, signifies the entrance of the sports center and distributes the movements, functions and users.
The stadiums, which are submerged they are creating a prominent area, are protected by the motorway and protect the tangent houses.
