Gold Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2024
Zhejiang Pinghu Sports Center
by Frederic Rolland, Jia Jiong and Wang Hanlu
- A' Design Award 2024 Gold Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: International Frederic Rolland Architecture
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 132,996
- Verification code C98FEBCCD4 · Verify this award
About Zhejiang Pinghu Sports Center
Zhejiang Pinghu is a sports center in Pinghu City, planned as a public park for exercise and leisure. The total site area is 146,204.13 square meters. The facade uses abstract forms drawn from traditional wooden structures and frames of the Jiangnan region. Local ginkgo trees, leaf textures and colors shape the landscape. An 800 meter air running track allows visitors to follow exercise data in real time. A cage basketball park, family fitness areas and courts for bocci and air volleyball serve all ages. The surfaces reduce slipping and the risk of injury.
Within the evolving discourse of contemporary civic architecture, this aerial documentation of Zhejiang Pinghu Sports Center by FREDERIC ROLLAND ARCHITECTURE captures a facility that appears to engage meaningfully with current conversations surrounding landscape integration, public accessibility, and the reimagining of athletic infrastructure as urban catalyst. The design seems to draw upon the organic architectural traditions that trace lineage through practitioners who sought to reconcile built form with natural systems, while simultaneously employing contemporary tensile membrane technology and parametric design methodologies that enable the fluid geometries evident in the continuous ribbon element encircling the complex. The compositional achievement lies substantially in the integration of multiple programmatic elements into a unified formal gesture, where the elevated promenade functions simultaneously as circulation infrastructure, viewing platform, and unifying architectural element that stitches together the various components of the sports complex while creating a distinctive civic presence recognizable from considerable distance. The tensile canopy structure over the primary grandstand demonstrates technical sophistication in its apparent spanning capacity and the graceful catenary curves that suggest both structural efficiency and aesthetic refinement, the white membrane creating a luminous counterpoint to the earthier palette of track surface and surrounding landscape. The siting strategy positions the facility within a broader landscape composition that includes significant water features and generous tree planting, suggesting an environmental consciousness that extends beyond the immediate building footprint to encompass ecological and recreational amenity creation. The chromatic restraint, limited essentially to the interplay of green fields, terracotta track, white canopy, and grey-blue structural elements, achieves a visual coherence that allows the formal gesture of the sweeping ribbon to remain legible against the complex urban backdrop. Viewers might consider how the continuous nature of the circulation ribbon, unbroken as it flows around the entire perimeter, invites contemplation of movement, gathering, and the role of athletic facilities as places of communal experience and shared cultural celebration.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Based on the unique architectural and humanistic texture of Jiangnan, the architectural design extracts traditional architectural elements, such as wooden structure and pivot frame, in a modern and abstract way and uses them to transform the building facade, so as to achieve the overall effect of economic and aesthetic integration. The landscape design incorporates local ginkgo trees in Pinghu City, and uses ginkgo leaf texture and color as embellishments to form a unique facade expression and overall environmental governance features.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Total site area: 146,204.13 m².
The design of the reconstruction and expansion project of Pinghu Sports Center is configured according to the provincial professional sports event standards, so as to meet the competition function requirements of the 10th Games of Jiaxing and the needs of national fitness. - Tags
- Publicness, Intellectualization, Involvement, Riverside landscape, Leisure
- Production Technology
- The air smart runway adopts hybrid plastic paving and integrates a number of technologies such as intelligent information equipment and AI, so that people can see their own amount of exercise when exercising, and perceive the happiness and effect of exercise.
The ground of the basketball park is made of concrete foundation and the surface is made of SES rubber suspended sports flooring.
The children's playground and the senior recreation area adopt pitch foundation, and the surface layers of the two are respectively silicon PU system and artificial turf, this can prevent slip and reduce the risk of sports injuries. The project also uses a more secure high-welded fencing and a more interesting and safer wooden finished climbing wall. - Design Challenge
- The Pinghu Sports Center planned to host some events of the 10th Games of Jiaxing. The reconstruction project should be completed in about 100 days in order to ensure that the Games of Jiaxing be held on schedule, and this was a great test for design, construction arrangement, team cooperation and so on. The project time limit was tight and the task was heavy. With the support of many parties and the cooperation of team members, the project realized high-quality acceleration, and finally the acceptance was successfully completed on May 20, 2023.
- Project Duration
- The project started in June 2022 in Shanghai and finished in December 2022 in Shanghai.
- Operation Flow
- New vitality of the smart venue: When people run on the 800-meter-long blue and white air track, they can scan the QR code to monitor running data in real time, and can compete with other runners, detect temperature, humidity and other data and receive exercise reminders.
Sports facilities for all ages: Cage basketball park, family fitness and entertainment area, bocci and air volleyball courts for the elderly and other venues.
Intelligent scene access: Mobile security gates for flexible use during events, new LED screen with connection to the information release system and better picture effect, more than 1000 parking spaces that can meet the parking demand during events, and the newly added vehicle count prompts that can facilitate vehicle diversion. - Inspiration
- The renovation design adopts the overhead bridge, fitness footpath and landscape pavement, and realizes the functional connection with the concept of three-dimensional ribbon. The architectural scale is reshaped, the landscape scale is more suitable for viewing, and the natural ecology is organically combined and brings new vitality. This open, diverse and adaptable project brings an all-weather civic sports park that provides a multi-functional and immersive experience.
- Image Credits
- Image #1-5: Photographer SANQIAN VISUAL IMAGE ART, 2023.