As an open pavilion structure at an inviting human scale, the Community Sports Centre building in Chedun Town manifests itself as a spacious green sports park. For the benefit of residents in the southwestern neighbourhoods of Shanghai, the sports centre creates an attractive communal place for social encounters and physical exercise for all.
The building’s varied roof landscape of gabled roofs oriented to different sides reflects the variety of its uses within. As the fifth façade of the building, its intriguing form is visible from above from the adjacent high-rise residential buildings. The orthogonal arrangement of the roofs to one another continues into the open space to the north, which features sports fields of different sizes that join like a quilted green carpet. Intersecting the rectangular arrangement of the play, sports, and recreation areas, diagonal paths connect the sports centre in all directions to the surrounding neighbourhood. The two main building programmes – the Community Centre and the Sports Centre – are naturally separated to give each area its own atmosphere. The Community Centre and associated retail spaces are located on the open ground floor with direct access to the street as well as to the public park and sports fields. Floating above the ground plane on the first floor, all multifunctional sports halls are grouped together on one level, each contained under its own roof.
A bright atrium planted with trees and plants welcomes visitors to the Community Sports Centre and forms the heart of the complex, centrally connecting both levels and the two-storey swimming hall. Generous exercise areas for children and seniors open up from the atrium, which are closely linked to the outdoor recreation zones. In the flowing transition between indoor and outdoor space, young and older visitors alike can exercise and play in the fresh air when the weather is warm.
On the upper floor, the Sports Centre’s programme is organised as an open sequence of spaces – a continuous sports landscape whose different areas of use merge seamlessly into one another and are visibly defined by the folded roof structures containing them. The roof overhangs minimise solar radiation in the interior spaces, allowing for a transparent building envelope and providing provide pleasant shading for the balcony areas on the upper floor. The continuous fenestration opens up wide views of the sports park on all sides, which is directly accessible via a large spiral staircase from the balcony surrounding the upper floor.