WORLD VILLAGE OF WOMEN SPORTS
FIRM: Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG
The winning design was chosen among five submissions by a jury, comprised of the founder and main financier of the World Village of Women Sports, Kent Widding Persson, the co-founder and entrepreneur Maarten Hedlund, City of Malmo Architect,Ingemar Graahamn and Architects Mats Jacobson and Cecilia Hansson together with representatives from the City of Malmo.
CLIENT: H-Hagen Fastighets AB
ROLE: Diagrams and Renderings
“Considering the special requirements of women of all cultures and all ages, special attention has been given, to provide the sports village with a feeling of intimacy and well being often lacking in the more masculine industrial-style sports complexes that are more like factories for physical exercise, than temples for body and mind.” Bjarke Ingels, Partner-In-Charge, BIG
Danish architects BIG have won a competition to design a centre for research, education and training about women’s sports in Malmo, Sweden.
The central hall is large enough to accommodate professional football matches as well as concerts, conferences, exhibitions and flea markets. Rather than being an introverted sports arena shut off from the surrounding city – it appears like an open and welcoming public space, visible from all of the surrounding streets – generously offering its interior life to the passers-by. The pedestrian network around the main sports hall plugs into the surrounding street networks as well as the interior galleries of Kronprinsen, turning it into a complete ecosystem of urban life. “BIGs design places great emphasis on architecture tailored to women with an unconstrained atmosphere and a feeling of wellbeing. The architects see the WVOWS as a town within a town rather than just a sports complex. The decisive factor has been the holistic approach and the overall impression of the design – the ability to interact with the neighborhood and environment, and creating attractive housing and functions at the same time.” Mats Jacobson, Jury Member, WVOWS
“The WVOWS fuses high levels of ambition within public space and private accommodation, living and working, health and recreation, sport and culture. Like a village rather than sports complex it merges the modern utopianism of the neighboring Kronprinsen with the intimate scale and specificity of the nearby historical city center of Malmo.” Bjarke Ingels, Partner-In-Charge, BIG
Called The World Village of Women Sports, the project is conceived as a series of buildings of varying size with sloping roofs, alternating with open spaces.
Composed as a village rather than a sports complex the WVOWS combines individual buildings with a variety of uses with open spaces and public gardens.
The main hall will be able to accommodate football matches, concerts, conferences, exhibitions and markets.
“From the main football field at its heart, to the gyms and auditoria, from the handball halls of the university to the laboratories of the health facility, it is an entire village committed to sport.” Nanna Gyldholm Moller, Project Leader, BIG WORLD VILLAGE OF WOMEN SPORTS CREDIT LIST:
The sloping roofscapes and alternating building volumes provide the complex with the varying identity of a small village thus reducing its scale to the adjacent neighborhood.
PROJECT: WVOWS TYPE: Invited Competition CLIENT: H-Hagen Fastighets AB COLLABORATORS: AKT, Tyréns, Transsolar SIZE: 100.000 M2 LOCATION: Malmo, Sweden STATUS: 1st Prize Partner-in-Charge: Bjarke Ingels Project Leader: Nanna Gyldholm Moller Team: Gabrielle Nadeau, Daniel Sundlin, Jonas Barre, Nicklas Antoni Rasch, Jin Kyung Park, Fan Zhang, Steve Huang, Flavien Menu, Ken Aoki