S’aigua Dolça Sports Equipment in Palma de Mallorca.
1st PRIZE Competition

First prize in the competition for the S’aigua Dolça sports equipment in Palma de Mallorca, organized by the Palma City Council.

The proposal for a new public sports facility in the dense urban fabric of the Terreno neighborhood is part of a set of urban strategies to improve its connectivity with the city’s Paseo Marítimo.

The needs program is a complex program that includes a large parking lot, a restaurant area, and a sports area with swimming pools and a gym.

The parking space is located in the form of a plinth, consolidating the existing dividing walls of the neighboring buildings. From here emerges a perforated prism that contains the sports program and opens up terraces in the form of a solarium. The appearance of the PATIO (of Mediterranean heritage) in the interior, structures, organizes all uses, provides light, ventilation and guarantees visual connection throughout the spatial sequence of the complex.

In functional terms, the different activities associated with each of the two proposed communications nuclei are developed; on the one hand the car park (on the first three floors) and the restaurant could function independently and on the other, the sports center.

In how much the sports venue is distributed by levels; On the 2nd floor there is the entire area of ​​changing rooms and water glass machinery. On the 3rd floor there is a water space that brings together the 21.5×11.5 pool with 5 lanes, a smaller pool linked to the solarium and a sauna area. On the following floors, the spaces for gymnastics are maximized, offering flexible spaces, 4 spaces that allow solving the complexity of the activities in an adequate way to develop directed activities. Finally, the possibility of including two paddle tennis courts on deck becomes effective.

The building complex adopts a unitary approach, with a heavy and light materiality at the same time, through the construction of a simple and compact building. A flexible construction with a rigorous order that takes materials from the island (sea concrete and ceramic tiles); as character and formal support; a concrete precast defines the entire envelope with a changing layout in response to the complexity of the program.