The active roof

The often neglected “fifth façade” offers huge potential for accommodating sports facilities, playgrounds or day care centres.

The Kauf­land sports roof is a wonderful example of the sustainable acti­va­tion of roof space in urban areas. The often negle­cted “fifth façade” offers huge poten­tial for accom­mo­da­ting sports faci­li­ties, play­grounds or day care centres in an urban envi­ron­ment and in a manner that saves both space and resources.

Sport­be­trieb Erfurt, the Kauf­land super­market and REGUPOL are among the pioneers of the move­ment.

Our cities are beco­ming incre­asingly crowded. More and more people are moving closer toge­ther in incre­asingly limited spaces. Even provi­ding loca­tions for such essen­tials such as food, retailing and sports is beco­ming diffi­cult.

Roof­tops offer a vast, and to-date, rarely explored poten­tial for a wide range of uses. They are frequently seen as no more than places for instal­ling air condi­tio­ners or antennas — things that nobody really wants to see or attract atten­tion to.

This is a lost oppor­tu­nity because these roofs can have many highly attrac­tive uses.

The Kaufland sports roof is a fully equipped type C athletics facility — and one of the best-visited sports facilities in the entire city due to its spectacular location and views.

The city of Erfurt took a new approach as early as 1994. The steadily expan­ding resi­den­tial real estate “Kleiner Herren­berg” in the south-east of the Thurin­gian state capital suffered from an urgent lack of both shop­ping and sports faci­li­ties.

During the initial plan­ning phase for the new food retail store, the idea of putting sports on the roof and shop­ping under­neath began to take shape.

And this is how the Kauf­land sports roof came into being.

The Kauf­land sports roof has a large arti­fi­cial turf playing field (73 x 110 metres), a four-lane, 400-metre running track with six straight sprint lanes, long jump, high jump and triple jump faci­li­ties, as well as two volley­ball courts.

It also includes a spec­tator stand with swee­ping views over the whole city and a buil­ding to house chan­ging rooms for athletes, judges, teachers and coaches as well as equip­ment rooms.

The renovation of the athletics surfaces was carried out in a sustainable and resource-saving manner — without removing and disposing of the old surface.

The arti­fi­cial turf pitch was reno­vated from the ground up in 2012, with the running track and other athle­tics faci­li­ties follo­wing suit in 2020. REGUPOL, a long-stan­ding sponsor and promoter of sport in Erfurt, was respon­sible for this second stage.

For reno­vating the athle­tics surfaces, a sustainable and resource-saving approach was taken: after clea­ning each synthetic surface thoroughly, a new wear layer was applied on top without having to remove and dispose of the old surface beneath. This process is called re-topping and is one of REGUPOL’s many strengths.

REGUPOL had previously equipped Erfurt’s two largest sports faci­li­ties, the Stei­ger­wald Stadium and the Hartwig-Gauder Hall and is also a sponsor of “Top Team Thüringen”, a local sports team.

Cooperation between Erfurt sports clubs, Kaufland and REGUPOL has ensured a lasting and sustainable supply of sports activities for the Kaufland sports roof.

The newly reno­vated Kauf­land sports roof is a prime example of the symbiotic use of densi­fied spaces in urban capi­tals. While Kauf­land provides the local area with basic needs in food supplies, the sports ground covers the need for sporting acti­vi­ties — close to home, sustainable and extre­mely space-saving.

Coope­ra­tion between Erfurt sports clubs, Kauf­land and REGUPOL has ensured a lasting and sustainable supply of sports acti­vi­ties for the Kauf­land sports roof.

Acti­vating roof space in times of incre­asingly scarce resources is one of the great chal­lenges of our time. However, it is not only about desig­ning roof areas appro­pria­tely, but also about ensu­ring conflict-free use of a building’s various levels. Here, sound insu­la­tion in parti­cular plays a major role, which is also one of REGUPOL’s core compe­tences.