CAN BUTJOSA MULTI-SPORTS COURTS

Architect: Cooperative Labaula Arquitectes

Typology: Sports Facility and Public Space

Location: Parets del Vallés, Barcelona

Construction Dates: 2013 (Phase I)
2016-17 (Phase II)

Photos by: Carlos Hernández

 

Cooperativa Labaula Arquitectes

The public competition challenge demanded to cover and adequate a multi-sports court. This fact developed a canopy-building proposal, which allowed a sensitive reduction of masse, weight and sections in its structure. The design searches in the environment the main answers for the functional and geometrical solutions:
1.- The initial decision to form the structural cover of the courts with a large-lighted metallic porticos prefabricated, with the aim to reduce the works timing.
2.- A wide transversal portico, as the main elevation facing the school, shaping its characteristic V-appearance to sustain the transversals structure
3.- The relationships with pre-existences: A pine grove located in the north corner; the entrance to the existing locker’s rooms and its slightly raised position which highlights its urban scale.
After this first stage, the city council required a new improvement of the courts to fulfil the existing normative and protect acoustically the adjacent dwelling. The building’s configuration forced us to innovate in material and constructive answers with a double goal: guarantee the proper levels of acoustic absorption and isolation, as well as an optimal integration within its nature. Three independent labours with three different material palette associated:
A.- An isolation wall, constructed in concrete, holey brick and polycarbonate with inner rockwool to form an absorbing and isolating partition that provides a great level of inertia to stop the reverberated noise.
B.- A glassed partition in the north-east side minimize the acoustic impact to the school, preserving direct vision of the complex.
C.- A heterogeneous sound-absorbing ceiling to cushion and soften the reflected sound wave.
These works have made compatible the sport and educative activities with the required acoustical comfort, as well as a complement and improvement of the initial project, with its own language and philosophy, conceived as a unitarian whole.