Open publication - Free publishing - More gymnastics
My graduation project was based on the redesign of Bunnerong Gymnastics Centre in Heffron Park, Maroubra.
The project was prompted by the existing facility's need to update their premises as a result of it's general inadequacy. The facility has also been highlighted as a key component in the new Heffron Park Management Plan for the renewal and refurbishment of the entire park.
The gym in its current state is a shed.
The site is set within a significant regional park with a range of sporting facilities, alongside an arterial road and adjacent to a high density housing precinct.
While my initial intention was only to redesign the gymnastics centre the site necessitated an improved public domain. This led to the conception of a new urban forecourt and pedestrian link to nearby sporting fields, providing greater amenity to the nearby residents and facilitating improved pedestrian access and distribution to and from the site.
My primary design intention remained to create a new gymnastics centre that would better represent and foster the activities within it.
Initially we were asked to set up our theoretical framework through an extensive literature review. As a result of wanting to step away from the shed like structure and move towards creating a place which would better represent gymnastics my research focused heavily on the thoughtful making of spaces.
"It is good for the mind to go back to the beginning because the beginning of any established activity is its most wonderful moment. For in it lies all its spirit and resourcefulness, from which we must constantly draw our inspirations of present needs. We can make our architecture great by giving them our sense of this inspiration in the architecture we offer them" - Louis Kahn, "Form and Design (1960)", in Louis I. Kahn. Essential Texts, ed. Robert Twombly (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), 65.
This quote by Louis Kahn led to further theoretical and experiential research about the beginning and essence of gymnastics. In highlighting the beginning of gymnastics it is important to note that it originated in the open air courtyards of Ancient Greece where it became a fundamental component of their educational system. Today gymnastics can be understood in terms of educational/recreational gymnastics and competitive gymnastics with the key difference being that the former focuses on allowing the participant to become aware of their body through range of suggested movements while the latter is focused on the participant perfecting a set routine where the goal is ultimately to win.
The core movement ideas which generate both forms of gymnastics are flexibility, agility, balance, speed, strength, power and rhythm. These movement ideas are based on the body pivoting about a set point. Individual movement ideas are then joined to form a sequence in which they compliment and/or juxtapose one another to form a routine.
When I was presented with the program and training schedule my immediate reaction was to rearrange and group them into three main categories of competitive, recreational and utilities to better articulate the core functions of a gymnastics centre.
In keeping with the notion of gymnastics as a sequence, a lineal sequence of these functions was set up in order to express the journey of becoming a gymnasts. This was then revised into a circular sequence where the utility/administration functions led to the educational/recreational functions which led to the elite/competitive functions and folded back into the administrative functions. I felt this better reflected the gymnasts journey as many of the elite gymnasts become staff members.
The circular sequence allowed for a central courtyard which the built form and proposed functions could pivot around.
Through a series of massing models I decided to pursue the ribbon like form for its evocative qualities which implied an unfolding of sequential spatial experiences that would accentuate the body's movement through space. The ribbon also acted as an analogy for the gymnasts in motion because much like a gymnastics routine is based on a sequence of individual movements, where each movement is a continuation of the previous, the ribbon form acted similarly in that one element folded into the next, with the floor becoming the wall, becoming the ceiling to then become the wall and so forth.
