The Styrum sports park is the prototype for the redevelopment of a dilapidated grass pitch.

The Styrum sports park in Mülheim is a wonderful example of the transformation of a dilapidated grass pitch into a family and generation-friendly leisure park. Its centerpiece is the Tengelmann Arena, a multifunctional open-air hall by McArena.

The entire district benefits from the family- and generation-friendly offers. And it needs it, because Styrum has not been one of the most privileged areas of Mülheim an der Ruhr.

The Tengelmann Arena can be booked by clubs, groups, companies and families. In addition to the artificial turf pitch (15 x 30 m) and the perimeter boards, its features include LED lighting, a scoreboard, mini goals and a speedometer for goal kicks.

A special feature of this McArena open-air hall is the connection with the calisthenics facility. The installation of permanently installed fitness equipment on the outside and in the covered area in front of the open-air hall creates a compact sports center. This also includes the digital goal wall on the outside wall.

In addition to the Tengelmann Arena, high-quality, challenging and unusual facilities have been established here: a "Ninja Run", a 100 m running track and a 500 m running track, a throwing and jumping area, a boules court, a sports playground, a parkour facility, a bouldering rock, two beach volleyball courts and a streetball court.

The two halls at Sportpark Weil were planned to be barrier-free from the outset and were expressly designed for inclusive sports.

In spring 2022, the Weil sports park in Esslingen am Neckar was extended to include two adjacent outdoor halls. One is mainly used for soccer, the other for many other sports.

The halls are used by the two clubs FC Esslingen (soccer) and SV 1845 Esslingen (almost everything else). In addition, the surrounding schools, residents, businesses and social organizations use the sports areas of the two open-air halls regardless of the weather.

The two halls in Esslingen are the first to have solar panels installed and greenery planted on their roofs. They are also extremely economical in other respects: they require no heating, are illuminated by LEDs and are operated automatically.

This is not a new sports park, but a targeted expansion of the offerings with two McArena open-air halls. Both halls were planned to be barrier-free from the outset and specifically designed for inclusive sports.

The rapid development of sports parks and the continuing boom in open-air halls are the logical consequence of our changing sporting behavior.

The Frintrop Sports and Citizens' Park opened in Essen in October 2022. This pioneering project is the result of the transformation of a grass pitch into a versatile sports and leisure facility of social and community importance.

The park is operated by the local SC Frintrop 05/21, which was still at home here three years ago on two clay pitches. With the conversion of the first large pitch into an artificial turf pitch in summer 2020, the footballing future of the dedicated club was initially secured with the motto "Inclusion. Integration. Together. Future." was secured.

The special feature of this McArena open-air hall is its adaptability to the sound insulation requirements, which were extremely high for this project. For this reason, two walls were designed to be closed.

The open-air hall certainly offers the most versatile range of activities. Thanks to its roof, it can be used all year round and in the best conditions: There is no snow on the pitch in winter, the athletes are in the shade in summer and dry on rainy days.

Another highlight is the basketball arena, which is also very easy to use for wheelchair users. The boules court attracts many older people. There is also a calisthenics facility, a trampoline field, wave run and obstacle course. The swing landscape has a net swing and equipment suitable for wheelchair users, which encourages children with and without disabilities to play together.

The arrangement of all the pools has been custom-tailored to suit the site’s unique location.

A harmonious arrangement of three roofs lends the building a sculptural flavor with an underlying sense of invitation, and its distinctive appearance offers a hearty welcome to visitors when seen from a distance. Inside, these dynamically arranged roof surfaces mark out the various pool areas in a playful fashion without disturbing the aquatic landscape’s open nature.

This emphasis on a nuanced treatment of the requisite ceiling heights lends each of the zones its own sense of scale.

The arrangement of all the pools has been custom-tailored to suit the site’s unique location. In the center, we find a pool that invites swimmers to “get in a few laps.” The adjacent non-swimmer and toddler pools as well as the water playground face toward the southern facade. Here, we also find the food court and adjoining terrace and a grassy area for sunbathing.

Next to the children’s area is the quiet zone with deck chairs, warm-water pool, steam bath, and infrared sauna. Located behind this area is a separate protected area for the diving facilities with 1-, 3-, and 5-meter diving platforms. Other attractions include the two waterslides—100 and 123 meters in length—on the northern side of the building.

Next to, and acoustically separated from, the slides, we find the learning pool in which lessons are held and the adjacent 25-meter pool for the swimming clubs.

Guests find it easy to navigate this single-story swimming area located at ground level. Lightweight glass dividing walls delineate the quiet area, screen the slides’ landing area, and offer a high level of privacy for the learning pool and the second 25-meter swimmers’ pool.

The Indoor pool facility is notable not only for its sculptural roof design but also for the generous glass facades, which enclose the structure like a lightweight, transparent curtain. The facades thus provide an unimpeded view of the surrounding greenery and impressive stock of trees.

The architects’ goal was to come up with the most sustainable design possible for the building and power supply.

The deliberate use of natural materials—in the connecting wooden roof with its delicate, untreated squared spruce timbers or the near-natural beige of the floor of the baths, for example—creates a connection to the landscape of the adjacent Schwakaten and Mainau forests.

Color accents are provided, for example, by the red heated benches, which articulate the space and the shiny blue mosaic tiles. The varying roof heights create bands of light that generate a particular atmospheric effect as the sun angles in.

The architects’ goal was to come up with the most sustainable design possible for the building and power supply. Almost the entire roof landscape is thus covered in photovoltaic modules supplied by the Stadtwerke Konstanz company. Most of the building’s heating is derived from combined heat and power modules and from waste heat produced by the pools and wastewater from the showers. This allows the indoor swimming pool to save around 171 tons in CO2 emissions each year.

The open character and sophisticated, well-nigh inexhaustible diversity of the new Schwaketenbad make it a particularly impressive venue in which all types of user groups are encouraged to interact with one another. The striking spatial atmosphere is a key part of providing bathers with a memorable experience.

Community sports halls have a noble social function. So does the Zlatar Bistrica sports hall by NOP Studio.

Community sports halls are a somewhat marginalised building type, even though they provide programmes central to local communities and have a specific, rather noble social function. They belong to buildings with largest interiors fit for public gatherings such as fairs, concerts, and, of course, sporting events.

So does the Zlatar Bistrica sports hall by NOP Studio.

Zlatar Bistrica is a small town located in one of the few plains of otherwise hilly Hrvatsko Zagorje in northwest Croatia, a town with but a few distinct urban features, such as the school, church, and community health centre scattered along the two main roads, Vladimir Nazor and Zagorska.

Sports halls host important social experiences. Not only for the athletes, but also for everyone else.

Community sports halls often make part of school building complexes and become functional and symbolic centres of small communities with limited public architecture.

Designing a sports hall is therefore an important urban challenge, as it has to resolve the basic contrast between a simple hall and an important public building.

This contrast is a common pitfall for investors and designers alike. While the functional requirements for a sports hall can be met with a basic, even prosaic design, such design may miss the opportunity for a large investment such as this to also make a cultural contribution.

Besides the urban and symbolic function, sports halls also accommodate important social processes, not only for the youth, for whom they are primarily intended, but also for everyone else. Parents who bring their children and watch them train, for example, often end up meeting and hanging out there.

The hall has been placed on a lot sloping toward the west and configured to respond to the given urban and topographic determinants.

The sports hall project for Zlatar Bistrica had to face all these challenges. Withdrawn further away from the main roads, the school and the church do not define the street view leaving it mainly rural. The school complex is in symbiosis with its rural environment; its neat, relatively neutral modern architecture defines the access square on two sides, while the remaining two sides border with a typical rural property with outbuildings. This arrangement fits nicely with the school yard, which is used to grow plants and teach children about nature and agriculture.

The western perimeter of the school square used to border with a sports hall that had been destroyed by fire, and the new hall project inherited its former orientation as an important parameter to be integrated with the building's new external and internal configuration.

The hall has been placed on a lot sloping toward the west and configured to respond to the given urban and topographic determinants.

The Zlatar Bistrica sports hall showcases an ambitious design that imparts the sense of contemporary architectural culture to a small town.

The interior reflects this sloping exterior pedestrian configuration. The façade that opens to the school square with glazed ground level and entrance allows the public square space to enter the interior and then cascade down the grandstand staircase to the lower sporting level, which is why the square has a clear view of what happens in the hall and vice versa.

The square and the hall interior complement each other and exchange views in an almost seamless and direct shift between what goes on in the hall and outside. The outer layer of the hall is made of translucent polycarbonate, which at night turns the entire volume of the building into a lantern illuminating the school square and the surrounding area.