Athletics Training Hall Hamburg, Germany
Top athletics athletes also spend eight hours or more a day at their “workplace”. For athletes, this can be wonderfully moved outdoors in summer, but in bad weather and in the winter months, it’s off to the hall! In this respect, the city of Hamburg has so far been unattractive for top and young athletics athletes: There were no adequate training facilities for the winter months. But in the course of its bid to become an Olympic city in 2012, the city decided to build a new athletics training hall. The Olympic bid has failed, but the hall is standing.
The official opening of the new sports hall took place at the end of November, but training has been going on since the beginning of November – and under the best conditions.
Project data
Architect
Markovic Ronai Lütjen Voss, Hamburg
Client
Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Ministry of Education and Sports
Façade technology
R&M Fassadentechnik Oststeinbek GmbH
Glass supplier
Schollglas Technik GmbH Objektzentrum, Heynitz-Lehden
Architecture for the athletes
In order to create an open feeling of space, the hall was designed by the Hamburg architects Markovic, Ronai, Lütjen and Voss to be completely transparent. The athletes always have the feeling of training outdoors. On an area of 13,500 m², training facilities for all athletics disciplines are offered. There is a 200m circular track with four lanes and banked curves, long and high jump facilities, shot put devices and a sprint track for the 100m run and the 110m hurdles. The dimensions of the hall – with a length of 131 m and a width of 49 m – are determined by the circular track and the sprint track.
The idea of giving the athletes a feeling of spaciousness in the hall is also reflected in the supporting structure: In order to be able to bridge large spans without columns, large beam cross-sections or lattice structures are usually necessary, which influence the building height and the feeling of space. For this reason, the architects chose an external construction in which the roof is supported by tensioning structures with pylons. Only narrow T-beams can be seen in the hall.
In addition to the undisturbed expanse in the interior, the external construction with pylons in conjunction with substations ensures that the training hall appears strikingly compared to the neighbouring buildings despite its low overall height.
Open architecture with maximum sun protection
In addition to the striking pylon construction, another architectural design element is the inclination of the façade by six degrees. The post-and-beam system was mounted as a top-mounted construction on the internal steel columns. The all-round transparent design of the training hall ensures excellent lighting conditions, but at the same time places high demands on the glazing: the more daylight enters the room, the better the sun and glare protection must be. For this reason, the architects decided to use GEWE-therm® TPS solar control insulating glazing from SCHOLLGLAS. The Pilkington OptifloatTM lenses are provided on one side with a silver-based, highly selective SuncoolTM Billiant coating and guarantee optimal sun protection with high light transmission at the same time. In order to ensure ball impact safety, the safety glasses GEWE-dur® and GEWE-safe® from SCHOLLGLAS were also used.
The prerequisites for top sporting performances have been created with the new athletics training hall. The new hall offers optimal training conditions for the winter months, and a positive environment also has a performance-enhancing effect. But in the end, only one thing helps to be among the best: practice, practice and practice again…
