Cankaya University Sports Center | Erkal Architects

Sports Center building is conceived of as a social hub for the surrounding community, as much as it is a collective magnet within the Çankaya University campus. Çankaya University campus is a newly inaugurated campus, in a rapidly developing area in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, a city with five million residents. Echoing the needs of such recently developed residential areas, the vicinity is in desperate need of social infrastructure. In order to address this, the building program is devised for flexibility aimed at a continuous operation throughout the day. Deviating out of a classically planned school sports facility with a large central hall with tribune seating, the center reflects a more contemporary approach to sports activities: a tennis-priority closed multi-sports hall, fitness halls, studio exercises, squash, racquetball, open and closed basketball and soccer courts. A set of studios allowing non-sports physical and semi-physical activities are also included. Supporting facilities include foyers for relaxing, a vitamin bar, saunas and a meeting room.

A multi-faceted approach to the building program required a spatial arrangement that has multiple locations to generate events with varying degrees of independence. Therefore, the building was designed to dispell any calls for centralization. Internal and external spatial variation utilizing the level changes in topography and multiple unexpected views with transparency were the primary design objectives.

As the building situates itself on the topography, three primary levels are created in order to place standardized sports hall volumes. A set of secondary levels are created in between primary levels to further accentuate the planar articulation of free spaces. Articulated residual volumes allow differentiation in character at smaller scales, both internally and externally. Thus, first and foremost, the accentuated levels visually convey the adaptation of the building to topographical variation while providing activity volumes.

The building must face the western sun, as it establishes visual connections and pedestrian access. The western facade is developed in order to modulate the solar radiation and outward views as well as glare with its adverse effects for activities such as basketball. Facade modulation provides an interplay of sun rays and interior surfaces throughout the day on one hand, and artificial lighting and exterior fins after sunset on the other.

The Sports Center has been an active facility as it is next to the dormitories of the campus. The two facilities share a steep slope, both extending on to several platforms within the topography. Outdoor sports courts are scattered on these platforms to vitalize a landscape of sports activities. A running track cycles through these platforms and level changes, connecting many locales along the way, while generating a film sequence with snapshots of spatial storytelling for the runner.