A team of three co+labo students, Yang Xuang, Yamashita Shoei and Mori Yuki have decided to enter the “Sport Citadel” Competition for Young Architects, and managed to reach the finals. The competition Brief, declaring that “a sport arena is an ancient gesture […] which is balanced between function and theatricality”, asked for design of such “architectural gesture” that would be capable to generate and support high quality of urban life.
In response to that
request, Xuang, Shoei and Yuki-san proposed a comprehensive green
plain for the site of Mappano, as the future heart of revitalization process, which
would be generated by integration of new, local sporting facilities into the
daily life of the nearby city of Torino. Their project proposed reinterpretation
of old civilizing processes, exploring how the sports culture could become a
driving force for broader urban regeneration. In their vision, the sports will
not offer only competitive and spectator-oriented games for passive audiences, but
provide incentives for healthy and active lifestyles to the locals. Their arena
blends into the landscape, evoking the forms of the Alps in the background. Its
permeable borders both define discrete activity zones and keep them integrated,
stimulating a variety of possible interactions between sport, recreation and
other activities to emerge - which, significantly, include urban agriculture and farming. At architectural scale, the proposed permeable polycarbonate
roof keeps the interior and natural environment directly related, while enabling
substantial energy savings. In that way, the arena promises to become a place where
various urban activities will melt and produce quality that reaches beyond
simple local cultivation.
A truly outstanding international
Jury included Peter Eisenman, Hitoshi Abe, Gianluca Mazza, Giuseppe Ferrero,
Giovanni Palazzi, Dang Qun, Andrea
Maffei.