An Engaging Sports Centre

Abstract

The initial departure for this dissertation has grown from a personal interest regarding sports and the effect it can have on an individual as well as the interactions that occur as a knock-on effect with regards to athletes and spectators. In our still-evolving democracy in South Africa where sports has managed to bring the nation together, there is still an imbalance of opportunity and facilities available to all. With the push towards professionalism in sport, facilities have developed into high-performance centres. Those typologies have generally become internally focussed facilities, ignoring the larger picture of a holistic sports development system for a better future. They have also become isolated from their context and inaccessible from the public. Sports and recreation spaces throughout the city should allow for various levels of engagement from the public to athletes at all times throughout the day. The Caledonian Sports grounds have a rich heritage of sports, recreation and development in not only Pretoria but also in the country. Allowing the opportunity to give a new purpose to the site and propose a new “step-up” facility and system that can enable sports and recreational development for the future. The intention for this dissertation is to challenge current mono-functional sports facility typologies and create a public sports facility that engages all users and creates multi-functional spaces that are supported by an architectural structure to maximise the impact the design has on the user and the site.