KHR Architecture, together with its German partner bp:plan architekten & ingenieure, has won a competition to design a new Olympiastützpunkt, a state-funded centre for top Olympic athletes located in Hamburg. The assignment includes remodelling, new construction and outdoor areas with a construction budget of EUR 31.5 million and a total of 16,820 sqm of construction.
Wins redevelopment of Olympic base
"It's a great assignment in an international league that we are proud to have won and are very much looking forward to getting started. We don't have anything similar in Denmark, and it will be both fun and challenging to create a centre where top Olympic athletes can train, live and receive healthcare support," says Janina Zerbe, who as partner and creative director is primarily responsible for the project at KHR Architecture.
"The assignment spans a number of different building typologies and includes both renovation and new construction. The project is divided into five phases and has a total building area of 16,820 square metres with everything from sports and swimming pools to housing and underground parking. In addition, there are outdoor areas, including a number of outdoor sports facilities, which will be constructed in the final phase of the project."
"It is also part of the Olympiastützpunkt project to create a new space for the neighbourhood that both the athletes and the public can enjoy. We always think about our architecture in relation to its surroundings, so it's great that as part of the project we'll be helping to create outdoor spaces that will bring the whole area together, where a new primary school and media centre will also be built in the coming years."
"We won the contract together with our German partner bpplan, a smaller studio with good local knowledge and extensive experience in timber construction, which will be useful in the project. At KHR, on the other hand, we have experience with large-scale projects and the full range of typologies that the new Olympic Centre requires. In this way, our studios complement each other very well."
"The German market is highly competitive, so we have deliberately chosen to concentrate our efforts on Berlin and Northern Germany. It's great to see that the strategy is bearing fruit. Hamburg has many public construction projects to be realised in the coming years, so the Olympic Centre is certainly not the last project in the city we will bid on," concludes Janina Zerbe.
Facts about the project
Olympic base is a state-funded centre for top athletes from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein who participate in Olympic or Paralympic sports at an elite level. There is a special focus on the sports of beach volleyball, swimming, badminton and handball. In addition to training facilities, the centre offers services such as physiotherapy, sports medicine, psychology and nutrition. Athletes can stay on-site in the "athletes' house", which will be newly built in the third phase of the project.
New builds and remodelling will primarily take place in the western and northern part of the area and includes five sub-projects. It starts with the demolition of the existing Aqua Sport Hotel, followed by the construction of a new Olympic training centre. This will be followed by the construction of an underground car park, student housing and the 'athletes' house' residential complex, and finally, the existing swimming stadium will be expanded. The gross floor area is approximately 16,820 m².
Construction of outdoor areas includes additional sports areas, especially beach volleyball courts and, not least, a unifying square for the area, linking the Olympic Centre with a new primary school and a new media centre, which are being built in parallel as separate projects, an existing sports elite school and the main street Dulsberg Boulevard.
The entire area is located in the green belt, "Grünzug Dulsberg", which was created way back in 1918 as part of a then-new residential area.
The competition proposal was developed in collaboration with Alex and Odin Arkitekter.
See more of the project here.
