Redesign Your School Athletic Pavilion | 2014 National High School Architecture Competition #194
|Competition is a natural occurrence. It has been very living organisms instinct to compete for survival. Organized competition, on a larger scale, came into perspective in Olympia, a location in ancient Greece where the first Olympic games were held. The athletes that competed in these arenas competed in the sanctuary of Zeus, a Greek God. I included the first part of the title because it makes the complex sound mighty and superior. Athlos, in greek, translates to “competition” and the main purpose of the design is to host competitions. Olympia doesn’t just symbolize athleticism, but peace and camaraderie as well. During the Olympic games, all conflicts of the competing states represented in the games were to be ceased until the conclusion of the final event. So altogether, the title means peaceful competition.
The first element I consulted was the flow of the structure. To achieve less disturbed transitions between building components, I had the idea to integrate the exterior portions with the interior, and try to integrate a significant amount of the surrounding habitat with the new structure. That being said the first Idea I had was to include as little steps as possible in each section of the plan, keeping more natural formations that will be installed level with more fabricated substances. The second idea I had to achieve more flow in my design, was to incorporate a lot of outside space, to balance the influence of both the structure and the natural occurrences light sunlight. Having more outside space will also encourage any observers to engage in watching any outdoor activities that may be happening.
After all, this is a pavillion, not just a sports complex, so that objective of this building shouldn’t just be to watch sports. That being said, areas to lounge or do school related activities in is necessary. So, on top of making this a sports complex, it should also contain some educational purposes as well. Again, my overall goal is to try to integrate green exterior spaces with the interior spaces and utilize sunlight. I want eliminate any type of fluorescent light because it does not assume a natural appearance making the atmosphere less organic.
The effective integration of nature and the structure has a large dependence on the materials used for construction. Glass is going to compose a large portion of my design. Further discussing materials, I want the final product to display a modern and sleek appearance. The simplest way to do that is to have more neutral colors and only a select few. Increased variance will exhibit a disorganized and distracting appearance. The architecture of the building won’t remain it’s main focus, and instead that colors used to animate the building will.
Comments
Your research and development thus far has been very thorough - I appreciate the Olympic inspiration and I think it will work well with your ultimate design. Keep it up!
Don't forget, to register for the National Competition! You can do that here: http://discoverdesign.org/registration2014