WAI Architecture Think Tank

Education

How to incorporate the exigencies of sport training to a curriculum of the highest academic demand? How to create the ideal conditions for the development of student-athletes? How to forge an institution that foments athletic discipline while developing the necessary tools for the formation of professionals for Puerto Rico’s future? How to create a building based on the archetypical principle of Anima Sana in Corpore Sano (Sound Mind in a Sound Body)?

Program

The school program is divided into four principal activities: study, practice, rest and recreate.

The study area includes classrooms, workshops for technical studies, laboratories, library and media and conference rooms. These spaces will not only be dedicated to offer basic courses to prepare future university students, but they’ll also be capable to welcome a choice of technical disciplines that will prepare them to become trained professionals after the completion of school.

The practice area includes a sports field, a boxing gym, a medical room and changing rooms and showers.

The rest area incorporates the bedrooms that will offer an accommodation on site for student-athletes during the academic semester and, a housing alternative for high performance athletes willing an additional training during the school holidays.

The recreate areas are dispersed throughout the building and are aimed to function as a link between the school and the rest areas while providing spaces for students to interact but also to circulate freely, or just to invest the public space in with the school.

The school also hosts a dining room and cafeteria.

School

The Sports School and Training Center is a hybrid between institution for trade education and high-level training center.

Taking as a principle the dialectic between sport and pedagogy the building integrates diverse programs in a series of spaces that are inter-related. The changes of levels and the multiple access of the school promote the inter-change and interaction of sports training and education, while the relationship between its spaces echoes the openness and panoramic approach of the program.

A slender wing overlooking the football park contains dormitory rooms while in turn connects with the volume of the study areas. The area of the classrooms is generated by lifting the volume above the level of the football field, creating the area where the gym, medical room and locker room are situated while simultaneously developing an interstitial space for a covered seating area.

A ramp that connects the park with the school shapes the space where the cafeteria is located. This ramp leads to the area of the classroom which in turn contains the workshops and laboratories, faculty offices, conference rooms and the library.

Project Name: San Juan Sports School and Training Center

Status: Commission

Year: 2010-11

Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Program: School, Sports Training Facilities, Dormitories, Cafeteria, Library.