Bunnerong Gymnastics Centre: September 2010

Manifesto

Prompted by the existing facility’s need to update their premises, the primary design intention sought to create a new gymnastics centre that would better represent and foster the activities it encompasses. Drawing upon theoretical and experiential investigations the design reads less clearly as a monolithic figural whole and more as a sequence of unfolding spatial experiences in order to accentuate the body’s movement through space.

Set within a significant regional park that provides a range of sporting facilities, alongside an arterial road, and directly across a high-density housing precinct, the site necessitates an improved public domain. As well as the gymnastics centre, the proposal allows for the conception of an adjacent urban forecourt to provide greater amenity to the nearby residents and facilitate improved pedestrian access and distribution to and from the site.

The resultant design evolved from investigations of open-air courtyards where gymnastics was first practiced and through an understanding of gymnastics routines as a sequence of individual skills linked together to create a continual flow of movement.

While acting as an analogy for gymnasts in motion, the continuous ribbon form which wraps around a central courtyard also generates multiple possibilities for the enclosure of the prescribed functions while allowing for a seamless connection between interior and exterior.

Bunnerong Gymnastics Centre

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Gymnastics Research