“We need a profound cultural change. The perspective on our sports facilities must change – from sports functionality to architecture for people,” says Prof. Dr. Kähler, sports development planner and chairman of IAKS Deutschland e.V. With the innovation competition for students, the IAKS is pursuing a clear goal: the transformation of standardized sports facilities into needs-based, open and versatile exercise spaces.

The competition invites young architects, designers and planners to rethink sports spaces. We are looking for creative, visionary and feasible designs for sports halls, outdoor sports facilities and outdoor pools – spaces that meet the social challenges of the present and provide new impetus for public spaces.

Four cities, four plots of land, four different starting situations: The competition is based on real sites provided by the cities of Mannheim, Heilbronn, Bonn and Koblenz. This practical basis makes the competition particularly tangible – both for the participants and for the municipalities interested in the ideas. Although there is no guarantee of implementation, the planning challenges are real.

In Mannheim, the selected site is located in the Seckenheim district, on a derelict conversion area of a former US military site. In addition to a planned fire station, a sports hall is also to be built here – as part of a new district.

Heilbronn is providing a site close to the city center, nestled between schools, residential buildings and hotel developments. The aim is to design a multifunctional sports hall that can be used for school and club sports as well as for recreational sports.

In the Pennenfeld sports park in Bonn , the approximately 800 square meter area of a former shot put facility is to be redesigned. The task: to create an attractive outdoor sports facility that motivates children, teenagers and young adults to take part in individual sports.

The Oberwerth outdoor pool in Koblenz is situated in a scenic location on the Rhine island of the same name. The challenge: to design a place for exercise, recreation and socializing that meets both tourist and local needs.

Students and graduates up to two years after graduation are eligible to take part. The competition is aimed at people from the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, design and related disciplines.

Both individual and group work is permitted. There are deliberately few limits to creativity: In addition to complete designs for entire facilities, ideas for individual spatial elements are also welcome in task part B; these should offer innovative solutions to the challenges of our sports facilities through their integration into the sports space.

Entries must be submitted by July 1, 2025, and the final designs can be submitted by August 12, 2025. A total of 5,000 euros in prize money is available. An interdisciplinary jury with representatives from architecture, planning, science, municipal administration and federal institutes will be responsible for the evaluation.

The award-winning projects will be presented at FSB 2025 in Cologne – one of the leading international trade fairs for sports and leisure facilities. Architects, planners, local authorities and companies will meet there. IAKS Germany will also disseminate the winning designs within its extensive network. The ideas will thus find their way into numerous architectural offices, administrations and companies in the sports facility sector.

For the participants, this means visibility, reach and the opportunity to position themselves in the professional landscape at an early stage. The competition sees itself as a platform to make innovative minds known – and shows that good design not only has form, but also a social function.

The background to the competition is serious: many sports facilities in Germany date back to the 1970s and 1980s. They were planned according to the logic of competitive sport and hardly meet the requirements of inclusion, everyday exercise or informal meeting places.

We are therefore looking for concepts that respond to the changed realities of life: the lack of exercise in the population, social isolation and the desire for flexible use. The brief explicitly names these problems – and calls for a creative debate.

Architecture thus becomes a tool that not only reflects social change, but actively shapes it.

The IAKS competition wants more than just functional sports facilities. It is looking for ideas for sports facilities that are also recreational areas, learning spaces, meeting places and exercise areas. The real task, the expert jury and the broad visibility make the competition a worthwhile opportunity for anyone who wants to get to grips with the sports facility construction of the future.

You can find further information on registration and the full competition brief here on the IAKS Germany website.

As a result of the war in Ukraine, the European architecture scene has quickly taken a public stand against the Russian war of aggression. G+L also stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and government.

BIG, David Chipperfield Architects, Foster + Partners, gmp, Herzog und de Meuron, MVRDV, OMA, Snøhetta, Zaha Hadid Architects – as a result of the war in Ukraine, which violates international law, the who’s who of the European architecture scene publicly opposed the Russian war of aggression in a very short space of time at the end of February/beginning of March 2022. Within just a few days, numerous offices expressed their solidarity with the people in Ukraine and with all those who stand for peaceful coexistence – above all via social media. In the case of Chipperfield, HdM, OMA and Zaha Hadid, the public statements were followed by an immediate halt to all construction projects in Russia. BIG also announced in a statement that the office would not be carrying out any projects in Russia or for the Russian government. However, it is not clear from this whether a construction freeze has been imposed or whether there are simply no Russian projects currently in progress.

First the governments, then the private sector. Today, our globalized world also makes it possible for corporations, companies or even planning offices to impose sanctions. So while Apple, Siemens, Starbucks, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the management consultancies KPMG, PWC, EY and Deloitte are suspending their business in Russia as a result of the war of aggression, or Elon Musk is actively supporting Ukraine with the help of his satellite internet service Starlink, including reception systems, the world of architecture is also drawing its own conclusions. This is worth a special look, as it was or is precisely non-democratic regimes such as Russia or China that have provided the big star offices with unique construction projects in recent years. The M+ Hong Kong designed by HdM only opened at the end of 2021. While at the turn of the year in Moscow, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop RPBW converted the GES-2 power station into a center for visual and performing arts for the V-A-C Art Foundation.

Jacques Herzog on democratic architecture

For us in the editorial team, this immediately (and once again) triggers the question of how political planning can be, but also how political planning must be. What is exciting in this context is that Jacques Herzog in particular has repeatedly publicly addressed the question of democratic architecture. You can think what you like of him and the HdM projects, but he takes a stand. As he did in an interview in 2020 with Lukas Gruntz from architekturbasel.ch. Referring to the historic urban development of St. Petersburg, Venice, Rome and Paris, he said here: “Perhaps more beauty is created in a non-democratic context because the context is more extreme, more radical.” But he also continued: “From our point of view, an enlightened and democratic society, architecture must be anchored in the population and ideally emerge from the needs of the population.” Sentences that should make us think. Now more than ever.

Ukraine war: Coop Himmelb(l)au under pressure over Crimea project

Lighthouse projects in non-democratic regimes must be better considered in future. I wonder what is going through Wolf D. Prix’s head at Coop Himmelb(l)au right now? His office was criticized even before the war of aggression. Since 2020, the Viennese have been planning two of the four cultural buildings that Vladimir Putin wants to be built by 2023. The particularly tricky case is the planned opera house on the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russian occupiers in 2014 in violation of international law(more on this in an SZ-Plus article). With reference to the lighthouse project, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed economic sanctions against the Viennese architecture firm and six of its representatives on January 21, 2022.

Wolf D. Prix: Coop Himmelb(l)au is building an opera house, not barracks

According to an SZ.de article by Gerhard Matzig, who interviewed Prix on the subject, this was preceded a year and a half ago by threats from the Ukrainian embassy to Coop Himmelb(l)au. Prix would not be allowed to build the opera house in Sevastopol or the architectural firm would soon be ruined. And according to Gerhard Matzig in his article, Prix has now also been advised to distance himself from the project and Putin. When asked by Matzig whether he would do so, Wolf D. Prix sighed on the phone. Prix is of the opinion that he is not building a barracks, but an opera house. As a cultural project, this is not subject to the embargo regulations. Unsurprisingly, as of mid-March 2022, Coop Himmelb(l)au still has no statement on the Ukraine war.

Ukraine war: Russian planners make their mark

But now back to those who openly oppose the war. Because it’s not just the European star offices that are flying the flag. According to SZ.de, a total of 6,500 Russian architects, designers and urban planners also signed an open letter on the website of the Russian architecture magazine “Project Russia” between February 26 and March 4, 2022, calling for an immediate end to the war. The tragedy is that this appeal also fell victim to the “fake news” law against critical reporting on the Russian army signed by Vladimir Putin on March 4, 2022. Only a short version of the campaign with a picture of a dove of peace can now be seen on the site. It says here in Russian: “Unfortunately, we were forced to remove the text of the letter under threat of criminal liability under the law that came into force today. We are for peace!”

One profession, one passion

Meanwhile, however, the Union of Architects of Ukraine also called on the International Union of Architects to expel the Union of Architects of Russia from the organization. “Those who do not condemn Russia’s actions support them,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung quotes the President of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, Oleksandr Chyzhevsky, as saying in a letter to the UIA. If you let this statement sink in, you have to ask yourself – even if you condemn Russia’s actions in the strongest possible terms – whether we really want to live in a world in which people from one industry, one profession, one passion, go against each other simply because of their nationality. For this very reason, the G+L editorial team would like to join our Russian colleagues: Мы за мир. We are for peace. And we condemn the Russian government’s attack on Ukraine, which violates international law, and stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and government.

Ukraine war: bdla and BAK also active

While German landscape architecture firms are still quite reluctant to express their solidarity, the bdla published an official solidarity statement #StandWithUkraine on March 2, 2022. The bdla declared its “deepest regret about the war in Ukraine, the loss of human lives.” It condemns this attack, which violates international law. The bdla’s thoughts are particularly with its colleagues from its partner association, the Guild of Landscape Architects of Ukraine. In the same letter, the bdla refers to the initiative of the Federal Chamber of Architects. This has set itself the goal of becoming active beyond expressions of solidarity. For this reason, the BAK is making its network available to the Ukrainian Association of Architects. The goal: sleeping places for refugees. Find out more here.