Rethinking Sports Spaces
Instructors: Carlos Banon
Context
Sports culture in Singapore is an integral part of the way of life for Singaporeans and has evolved into a microcosm of Singapore’s multicultural society. Innovation plays a crucial role in sport. By redefining well-established typologies, innovation shapes how the sport is performed, integrated and seen. In other words, innovation is needed to redefine the role of sport in society in a post-pandemic scenario.
We are increasingly becoming aware that urban development must be understood as a development within nature and interaction with nature. This challenge requires a rethinking of the design of our cities, and in particular, the spaces dedicated to sport and leisure as a landscape, as prosthetic nature.
Today, more people live in urban areas than in rural as our planet has gone through rapid urbanization in recent decades. This process of urbanization is affecting not only our condition of living, the social, the economic, the political, the cultural, but also the environmental. This new type of urban space should be a created ground that expands the inherent logic and functionality of nature and challenges the traditional understanding of densification strategies enhanced by eco-system services.
The SUTD + SportSingapore Option Studio focuses on sports spaces to create more significant sporting opportunities and access, more inclusivity and integration, and the broader development of capabilities.
How can sports spaces be empowered or augmented in the new post-pandemic paradigm to contribute to increasing society’s well-being levels? How can they be adapted to function as an identify-giving community space in the future? How can architectural design support this function? And how can the idea of community and identity be translated into architectural scale? And ultimately, can sport serve as a vehicle to support the implementation of our national priorities described in Vision 2030?
Studio Objectives
Students will investigate opportunities to redefine sports spaces by challenging a series of aspects related to public spaces, integrating nature and sustainable design thinking, passive cooling schemes, programmatic innovation in mixed-use typologies.
The course will be structured in groups of 3 students. Each of them will identify a relevant research question applied to a specific site and translated it into an architectural design.
Studio Agenda:
- Identify opportunities for integration of landscape and sports activities.
- Investigate the use of passive cooling strategies in sports spaces.
- Explore the articulation of sports spaces with synergistic activities and programs.
- Introduce more inclusive and accessible strategies in sports facilities.
- Address the national goals described in
Tengah Town Site
Tengah is the Housing Development Board’s (HDB) latest new town with about 700 hectares. It will be the model town for smart and sustainable living, featuring a car-free town center, lush greenery, and community farms. It comprises five districts that will provide approximately 30,000 public housing units and 12,000 privates ones.
The Tengah Sport & Recreational Facility is intended to provide vibrant sporting and recreational spaces for residents in the HDB town. Tengah residents will have access to public sports facilities within a 10-minute walk (about 400m) from their home, enabling greater sport participation. The Tengah Sport Facility will provide communal sport facilities and spaces that, together with active programming, will foster social mixing and make sport accessible to the residents of Tengah New Town.