The Sports Shed on the Hillside

A sports hall on a hillside: The new Königs­dorf gymna­sium wasn’t simply placed on the site, but rather seam­lessly inte­grated into the land­scape. Set against the back­drop of the foot­hills of the Alps, with its wooden facade and the undu­la­ting topo­graphy, the buil­ding combines sports, commu­nity services, and tradi­tional village archi­tec­ture.

On the outskirts of Königs­dorf, where the land­scape tran­si­tions into the Upper Bava­rian Alpine foot­hills, a buil­ding has been cons­tructed that deli­bera­tely defies the logic of many stan­dar­dized sports arenas. It is neither an isolated, large-scale struc­ture nor a tech­nical mono­lith, but rather a buil­ding that responds to the land­scape, its scale, and local archi­tec­tural tradi­tions.

The new gymna­sium at the Königs­dorf Elemen­tary and Middle School was built on an extre­mely narrow lot, along with rooms for the school’s lunchtime super­vi­sion program.

Hrycyk Archi­tects are respon­sible for the design.

The central idea arose from the topo­graphy: The sloping terrain was not leveled but rather incor­po­rated into the design. Chan­ging rooms, tech­nical and auxi­liary spaces, as well as parts of the hall level, are set into the slope and appear far less massive from the outside than their actual spatial program would suggest. The archi­tec­ture works with the terrain.

The complex consists of two struc­tures: the sports hall and the after-school care buil­ding. Both respond to the low-density neigh­bor­hood of single-family homes and reflect its scale. They are connected by a shared base zone and a spatial void that serves both as an access route and a tran­si­tional space.

Anyone approa­ching the complex from the school arrives directly at the after-school care center on the upper level. Access to the gym, on the other hand, is located lower down, off Mooseu­ra­cher Straße. This shift creates diffe­rent pathways and trans­forms the buil­ding into what is almost a small spatial land­scape.

Func­tion­ally, too, the gym goes beyond the tradi­tional sports program. In addi­tion to the actual playing area, it features a blea­cher section and an addi­tional fitness room. A divi­ding curtain allows up to three groups to exer­cise at the same time—an important factor for school and club sports in the town.

Of parti­cular inte­rest, however, is the archi­tec­tural inter­pre­ta­tion of regional buil­ding tradi­tions. The archi­tects drew inspi­ra­tion from typical Upper Bava­rian farm­steads, speci­fi­cally the inter­play between a stuc­coed resi­den­tial buil­ding and a wooden barn. As a result, the Königs­dorf gymna­sium does not appear as a mere sports faci­lity, but rather as a successful contem­po­rary inter­pre­ta­tion of a rural farm buil­ding.

The open larch wood façade creates a subtle orna­mental pattern on the gable ends with simple diagonal cuts. In front of the after-school care buil­ding, fixed wooden slats echo tradi­tional shut­ters and trans­late them into a modern archi­tec­tural language. The hall’s roof responds to the sloping site, the building’s height, and its inte­rior func­tions with varying over­hangs. A color-accented steel stair­case provides a deli­bera­tely contem­po­rary coun­ter­point.

The new gymna­sium at the Königs­dorf Elemen­tary and Middle School uses its hillside loca­tion as the driving force behind its design: sunken ancil­lary rooms, an appearance inspired by tradi­tional farm­steads, and a close inte­gra­tion of school sports, club sports, and after-school care create an unusual space for lear­ning, socia­li­zing, and sports.

With a refres­hing sense of restraint.