Stopice Sports Hall

Sports Center Stopice is located in a small village near the town of Novo Mesto, which is the capital of Dolenjska region. The Center extends on 2350 m2. This project offers a new answer to the question as to how a contemporary public infrastructure is placed into a typical Slovenian countryside. The building serves as a sports hall for the existing local primary school and also doubles as a community sports centre. The architecture responds to the 'archetypal' location (countryside houses, a church tower and green hills of Dolenjska region) with the structure and orientation of building mass and the materials used. Service program of the sports centre and the connections with the existing school building are placed within circumferential ring that adapts to the slope of the terrain. This ring corrects and hides the scale of the main hall volume that rises in the middle as a large wooden outbuilding. In the interior, rooms are spread around the main hall and the passages, entrances and views are created in a way which enables the space to be as permeable as possible. The windows between individual parts of the centre enable the visitor to view over the entire building.

There are two entrances, i.e. the main entrance and the service one. The great hall has seating for 220 spectators. There is a small warmup hall set next to the great hall, which is primarily intended for handball training. Sports Center Stopi?e is built of concrete, with wooden roof rails. The facade cladding is made of laminated larch. Formwork for the input facade was made of pine boards.

While designing the sports center the authors have relied on local traditions, the materials used locally and the context of the village setting.