Can Ricart Sports Center

View from the park. Concrete wall with textile texture.

Project details

• Project name: Can Ricart Sports Center
• Location of site: Barcelona, Catalonia
• Design team: Pere Buil Castells (Leader), Jordi Fornells Castello (Leader), Filipe Araujo, Ricardo Borges (Lisboa), Arnau Boronat, Ruben Heras, Sonia Bom, Inigo Ribera, Sonia Gaspar (Barcelona)
• Project type: Sports Center
• Client: Public (Foment De Ciutat Vella S.A.)
• Contractor/s: Acciona
• Site area: 5.100 Sqm
• Built-up area: 4.485 Sqm
• Cost of construction: 5.500.000 Euro
• Date of completion: July 2006

View from the park. The extension is an autonomous shape, enhanced by its simple shape and complex texture. The chimney shows the industrial origin of the area.

Words from the architect

The requirement was a public sports center for a socially difficult area. So it had to be cheap, it had to be integrative, and it had to be easy to use, with clear distribution.

View from the park. A big window allows to feel the nature from inside. Its position protects the swimmers from views from the street.

It was important for us that the building completed the urban block. Architecturally the project strategy starts from the existing conditions that makes it especially complex i.e. the integration of two buildings with strong identities, the sports pavilion (from the nineties) and the industrial building of the 19th century. The main effort of the architects was to arrive at a compact and coherent functional whole that volumetrically maintains the reading of the three bodies that form it: the two existing buildings and the new construction that contains the swimming pool, all formally autonomous.

The old factory and the externsion building are connected by transparent corridors.

The construction is very simple. Walls made of concrete, with a special texture. Covered inside with wood-concrete panels, painted white. Roof made of prefabricated concrete slabs, covered in the inside by Heraklith panels roof. In the wet areas the floor is a nonslip vinylic layer, and in the rest made of concrete paving stone.

The old factory and the externsion building are connected by transparent corridors. At the end, transparence over the pavilion field.

The entrance: situated in the courtyard defined by the main facade of the old factory.

The hall: Situated in the confluence of the 3 constructions (factory, pavilion, and extension). The meeting of the 3 architectural languages and shapes creates a cenital natural illumination. It is a ver fluid space. There is a cafe-bar, a rest area, public toilets and the reception desk.

The gap between the old factory ant the new extension creates an empty space that brings light in, and is used as a solarium for sunbath.

Reception desk: It is a control of admittance. It divides the users of the pavilion and the rest of the center. They are driven to the changing rooms from this point.

Changing rooms: They are in the ground floor of the factory building. It used to be a storage before.

Transparence between the courtyard in the core of the project and the parc, through the swimming pool hall.

From the changing rooms you can exit in one side to the swimming pool area (barefoot) or go back to the entrance door, to the interior vestibule, to go to the sports areas (trainers).

Swimming pool. High space, illuminated in an appellative way. All white, calm. It has 2 swimming pools: one is the swimming one, 25 meters long. The other is the bath, jacuzi, to relax. It has a lower ceiling to confort.

The swimming pool and its calm ambient. Twoo large windows in both sides bring light and views in.

Thermal area: next to the jacuzi, there is a thermal area with a sauna, special showers, massage room, etc...

Fitness area: just above the changing rooms, in the main room of the old factory. Illuminated space, where one can observe and be observed.

Aerobics rooms: Over the swimming pool, connected to the vestibule ant the Fitness through a large corridor opened over the Pavilion. The Aerobics room look over the swimming pool, through a glass wall.

The main swimming pool establishes visual relation with the aerobics rooms on the first floor.

The old factory, made of ceramic fabric walls, is covered by a white layer to give unity to its different times bricks.

The main and representative facade of the factory is completely and carefully restored in its original essence. It defines a courtyard opened to the street where the main entrance to the center happens.

The main space of the factory is recovered in its essence. Its double height and the perimetral gallery is perfect for the fitness space, where people like to observe and to be observed.

Credits

• Text: Pere Buil Castells
• Photographs: Adria Goula Sarda (www.adriagoula.com)