Think BIG

Some­times the most ground­brea­king sports faci­li­ties are not created through size or spec­ta­cular tech­no­logy, but through a radical reinter­pre­ta­tion of the loca­tion. The exten­sion to Gammel Hellerup High School north of Copen­hagen is just such a project: a sports hall that disap­pears and thus becomes the focal point.

The starting point was a deficit: the old sports hall next to the campus was func­tion­ally and struc­tu­rally outdated. It lacked a central, multi­func­tional space, both for sports lessons and for gradua­tion cere­mo­nies or commu­nity events. BIG formu­lated the answer to this with a concept that is as simple as it is inge­nious: the new hall is not placed next to the school – it becomes part of it.

The new multi-purpose hall at Gammel Hellerup High School, measu­ring around 1,100 m², was dug five meters deep into the schoo­lyard. This step is the key to the legen­dary character of the project. Not only does the sports hall visually contra­dict our classic under­stan­ding of a buil­ding, it also creates a comple­tely new level of use on its roof.

The roof of the hall is not a roof in the classic sense, but a topo­gra­phi­cally modeled schoo­lyard. Its gently curved shape was inspired by the trajec­tory of a hand­ball and creates a land­scape that invites people to sit, lie down, play and observe. Inte­grated benches at the edges turn the area into a social meeting point. Small, deli­bera­tely placed openings allow daylight into the hall and create surpri­sing visual connec­tions between inside and outside.

This is where the real inno­va­tion can be seen: the sports area and recrea­tion room no longer compete for space, they overlap. The hall becomes the invi­sible infra­struc­ture of a lively schoo­lyard. “Form follows formula” is what archi­tect Bjarke Ingels calls this prin­ciple – an archi­tec­tural trans­la­tion of move­ment into space.

But the project does not end with the hall. In a second cons­truc­tion phase, a two-storey art and educa­tion buil­ding was built between the sunken sports hall and the adja­cent soccer pitches. Its task is as func­tional as it is urban: it links the sports areas with the exis­ting school areas to form a conti­nuous spatial struc­ture.

Parts of this new buil­ding are also under­ground, a logical conti­nua­tion of the idea of using space in multiple ways. Pupils now move through the lowered sports hall in the center of the campus, from where they can reach class­rooms, the cafe­teria and the main entrance. Paths become expe­ri­ences, spaces become tran­si­tions.

At the same time, an exten­sion of the soccer pitches was created on the roof of the new parts of the buil­ding, a “green carpet” that not only offers addi­tional exer­cise areas, but also informal recrea­tional areas with a view of the sporting events. Sport, lear­ning and social inter­ac­tion merge into a single spatial unit.

This connec­tion is also visible in the cons­truc­tion: while the sports hall is desi­gned as a sand­wich made of wood, concrete and wood again, this prin­ciple is reversed in the new buil­ding. Here, wooden walls span between concrete ceilings and floors. This deli­be­rate reversal of mate­rials creates a coherent iden­tity that connects the two buil­ding sections.

The new sports faci­li­ties at Gammel Hellerup High School are more than just an exten­sion, they are exem­plary for contem­po­rary school and sports faci­lity cons­truc­tion: space-saving, energy-effi­cient, soci­ally acti­vating and (not only) archi­tec­tu­rally bold. This project shows how a func­tional requi­re­ment can be turned into a spatial expe­ri­ence – and why the best sports halls are some­times where you don’t imme­dia­tely see them.

BIG

Gammel Hellerup High School

Opening

2015/2017

José Campos

Johannes Bühl­be­cker
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