Italian architects Carlo Gaspari and Beatrice Comelli have recently designed the new Sports Hall in Gissi, a small village in the Abruzzo countryside (Italy).
The building has a direct dialogue with the square which it overlooks and it is easily visible from the city hall, the stadium, and the swimming pool; the volume is divided into two levels: the first, more permeable and transparent, is in polycarbonate and the second is in dark concrete.
The upper part of the building uses semitransparency to create a visual relationship between the outside and the activities inside the gym.
An entrance ramp with external cover leads to the entrance of the gym: from there, the inside structure of the gym is visible through the glass window placed on the short side of the entrance.
The Sports Hall will be used constantly by the children of the school during the daytime, while in the afternoon it will host the volleyball team: thus, two entrances are displayed, the main one for the spectators situated on the street front and one for the students and the athletes located on the long side towards the school, at the level of the garden; here the construction of a covered shelter is planned to allow safe passage of the pupils even during rainy days.
During the day, polycarbonate absorbs the shadows of the surrounding trees and buildings, creating a continuously moving facade; the black concrete protects the lower part of the building and contains the play space.
On the other hand, the coloured pattern enhances the internal section of the building in the lower part, and the geometric iron cover painted in white becomes a lattice that gives depth and lightness to space.
The result is an innovative space dedicated to sport, designed to enrich the territory that hosts it with new opportunities.
