November 24, 2016 – Archy Naija

Sport Complex perspective view

Location: Вld.6, blocks 1-6, Rossiysky Avenue, St.Petersburg
Project Year: 2013
Construction Year: 2016
Project Status: built
Customer: «SKA Hockey Club» Closed Joint-Stock Company

Awards:
– Silver Diploma of the “Architecton -2016” architectural review-competition (nomination “Built objects”)
– Silver Diploma of the “Golden Capital 2014” architectural rating (for the facades project)
– Silver Diploma of the “Golden Capital 2015” architectural rating (for the interiors project)

Authors:
S.Oreshkin – Project Manager
A.Weiner – Project Chief Engineer
R.Andreeva – Project Chief Architect
P.Kochnev, T.Kovalenko, M.Nukhina,
E.Oreshkina, E.Belyat, T.Gomonova, D.Uraksin – Architects

The Sports Complex is a fixed-site hockey center of the SKA sports club.

The building is designed in simple orthogonal volumes. The sports building architectural image is created by the artistic design of the facade surface and formation of the window/stained-glass openings: the system of the slope direct lines of the windows and stained-glass windows’ reveals, their intersection — add dynamics to the static volume of the building. Ceramic granite white colour and it’s surface finish create associative bond with the ice arena.

The building volumetric and planning solution is determined by it’s main functional purpose — covered sports arena meant for the hockey training and home competitions. It is also made in accordance with the surrounding buildings mainly presented by orthogonal form residential houses.

For the training process organization the project’s solutions provide for the following objects: ice fields of “European standard”, one of each is meant for 1000 places, hockey training center, fitness gyms, strength training gym, multi-purpose sports hall.

The following objects are also included into the complex: medical rehabilitation center, SKA hockey club museum, conference-hall, hotel for 140 places, SPA-complex, boarding school for the sports school trainees, restaurant, café, administrative & office block, utility rooms.

Open flatwork includes the following objects: small football field, basketball field, tennis court, mono-module — multi purpose ground for skateboarding and roller- skates,run track, open parking lots, landscaping, children playgrounds, gas boiler house and stabilized grass lawn for temporary helicopter landing site.

Plot total area – 76 742.0 sq.m
Coverage – 16700.0 sq.m
Complex total area — 34750.0 sq.m
Constructional volume — 251681.0 cu. m

Status: Built
Location: Saint Petersburg, RU
My Role: Sergey Oreshkin – Project Manager

Sport Complex perspective view

Sport Complex night illumination

Sport Complex perspective view

Sport Complex ice arena

Sport Complex interiors

Sport Complex perspective view

Sport Complex facades design

Sport Complex perspective view

Sport Complex & context area

Sport Complex night illumination

Sport Complex perspective view

Sport Complex facades design

18 June 2015: Denmark has a new right wing government. A couple of months later, despite student protests in front of city hall, the new government declares a decision to cut 8.7 billion Danish kroner (over $1.2 billion US) from education in Denmark, effectively cutting nearly 30 million kroner (around $4 million US) from the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK).

The result? 31 employees have been laid off this month; the student body is to be reduced by 30% over the coming years; 4 masters courses in architecture are being discontinued within the next 4 years; and 6 bachelor programs, 7 special programs and one entire institute in the Design School are being terminated. Teaching is being refocused towards technology and the professional sphere, but will this really improve the prospects of fresh architecture graduates, as they claim? Is it more important to challenge, or to adapt?

These changes in architectural education are being titled “A New Focused KADK; A plan of action to secure more graduates jobs, faster.” This is the brief, the challenge, being set by the Danish government in a country where education, including the 5 years necessary to become an architect, is free for all. However, the unemployment rate of designers and architects in Denmark was double the average of all other graduates of higher education between 2008 and 2012.[1] Is there a consensus in the government that Denmark is not getting value for money when it comes to architecture graduates? Does this skepticism extend beyond this small Scandinavian nation? Are we simply doing it wrong?

One of the major changes awaiting the architecture school is a mandatory internship over one semester, cutting out the option of an exchange during one’s Bachelor period. Anne Romme, Head of the Bachelor Program at the Institute of Culture at KADK, says that this decision “is probably a good one.” She continues to explain: “One could also discuss the question, because it directly cuts away a very fruitful and valuable semester out of a ten semester education; but if we do it in the right way, I think it can become a good thing that opens up our minds and sends students out to all corners of the profession and the world, and brings back new impressions. I think it’s probably going to be a very positive thing, we just have to do it in the right way.”

The vocational direction that the school is taking is an attempt to answer to the demands placed by the government. The possible advantages that await are obvious: higher employment rates, and architects that are better prepared for a life in the profession. On the other hand, the architectural discipline could begin to go down a less desired path.

“It’s very important to remember this balance between educating people directly for the profession, as if it was a kind of conveyor belt where we spit out people who hopefully fit into the ‘sharper,’ ‘better,’ front running part of the profession, but also our role in pushing the profession to new places,” says Romme. “It’s a balance. Architecture is a profession, but it’s certainly also a discipline, which is much more grounded in long-term questions and proposals. It’s not so concerned with which computer program is the ‘hottest’ right now… or what the big architecture firms in Denmark need right now; we need to tell them what they need.”

It’s undeniable that this change in Denmark’s most well known architecture school, the starting point for many well-known architects such as Bjarke Ingels and Henning Larsen, will affect the evolution of the entire architecture discipline in Denmark; and who knows what it could do to the profession beyond Danish borders? Will it dampen exploration, in favor of safety?

Young architecture students have responded to the Administration’s decisions with critical retaliation, albeit with minimal success. Yet Romme is positive: “There’s a lot of disagreement in the school whether this is the right decision, but luckily enough that’s good for schools: disagreement.” Hopefully this process will give birth to greater architects than ever. We’ll have to wait and see.

Day: November 24, 2016

SKA Hockey Club Sports Complex

How Denmark’s $1.2 Billion Cutback Forces Architecture Schools to Rethink Their Priorities

Construction begins on Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the Rockwell Group’s “shape-shifting“ arts center in Manhattan

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