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.