Yoga instead of waiting

We are not waiting, we are starting

At the Durlești sports center, just outside the Moldovan capital Chișinău, parents bring their children to their trai­ning sessions – and attend a yoga class or the gym there instead of waiting in the car or in the cold.

The entrance level houses class­rooms and a café with a pano­r­amic view of the course. Parents can drink coffee here and watch their children train. On the upper floor, adults have their own fitness zone with boxing and yoga areas. The lower level was built into the slope. It contains the chan­ging rooms and the stands with the best view of the pitch.

This orga­niza­tion sepa­rates the user groups – children, parents, coaches and staff – simply and successfully. The design was created by LH47, Moldo­va’s largest archi­tec­tural firm.

Prac­tical instead of perfor­ma­tive

The plan­ners cleverly embedded the buil­ding into the land­scape and the slope with a height diffe­rence of five meters. From a distance, the buil­ding appears very modest, with its full three storeys only visible from the playing field level.

The issue of sustaina­bi­lity is also addressed here in a prac­tical rather than a perfor­ma­tive way. Solar panels on the roof, the first on a Moldovan sports faci­lity, gene­rate a large propor­tion of the buil­ding’s energy requi­re­ments and signi­fi­cantly reduce opera­ting costs.

A rain­water coll­ec­tion system takes care of irri­ga­tion and main­ten­ance. Accor­ding to the archi­tects, these are not proclaimed addi­tions or green­wa­shing – but essen­tial parts of plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion.

Lines instead of boxes

Aesthe­ti­cally, the Durlești Sports Center breaks away from the boxy, utili­ta­rian sports faci­li­ties we are all fami­liar with. LH47 created biomor­phic lines and inclined columns, floa­ting balco­nies and trans­pa­rent facades. Trees are woven into the land­sca­ping to provide natural shade.

This creates a feeling of light­ness and liveli­ness – not a bad result for a space dedi­cated to move­ment and acti­vity.

Moldova may not be the first place that springs to mind when you think of inno­va­tive archi­tec­ture, but projects like this prove that vibrant archi­tec­ture for sport and leisure can be created anywhere – inclu­ding as muni­cipal infra­struc­ture.