Kerenzerberg sports center in Filzbach expanded

The Kerenzerberg sports center in eastern Switzerland has been expanded with a new accommodation building and a new sports hall. The architecture was provided by the Burkhard Meyer office.

On the southern shore of Lake Walen in the Swiss canton of Glarus, a striking concrete building rises above the scenery. The newly extended Kerenzerberg sports center is located on a high plateau in the municipality of Glarus Nord, was opened in 1971 and is also one of the largest sports centers in Switzerland. However, at around 50 years old, the accommodation was no longer up to modern standards. And their capacity – not least thanks to the extremely competitive prices – was slowly but surely reaching its limits.

The sports center has also undergone several expansions. After the addition of an indoor swimming pool and two sports halls in the 70s and late 80s, further additional buildings followed, such as a squash hall, theory rooms and athletics facilities. The most recent addition to the building stock consists of both an accommodation building and a new triple gymnasium. The architectural firm Burkhard Meyer from Baden in Switzerland is responsible for the design.

The new eight-storey building, which houses the accommodation, now also functions as the new spatial center of the Kerenzerberg sports center. Burkhard Meyer sees its towering form as a counterpoint to the spacious and large-scale sports halls. In their flatness, they merge equally with the surrounding terrain.

In the existing building, the focus of the material language is primarily on concrete. And so the load-bearing structures of the extension are also cast from in-situ concrete. The surface of the new buildings was sandblasted to differentiate them somewhat from the existing buildings, which are also made of concrete. Because the Sports Office of the Canton of Zurich, as the client, wanted the accommodation to have an atmosphere reminiscent of a hostel, the rooms that were subsequently inserted into the concrete shell are made almost entirely of wood instead. They were prefabricated from spruce and fir wood and then stacked modularly into the building structure by crane. This resulted in 77 rooms with a capacity of more than 170 beds. Thanks to the high degree of prefabrication of the room modules, this part of the new building was completed in just three weeks.

The new gymnasium also has a flat roof. With a floor area of around 50 by 40 meters, the roof is also structurally prepared for extended use in the future. For example, it could be used as a mini golf course or a photovoltaic system could be installed.

The following project is not from the seventies, but from the sixties. In London’s Holborn district, 6a architects transformed an old sports hall into a modern district center – with a focus on art. Read more about the exciting conversion here: Holborn Community Center.