The aim of the project is the construction of a new sports center in St. Martin in Passeier. The new building is located on the edge of the town, squeezed between the state road and the Passeier River, at the center of an area characterized by a complex of outdoor swimming pools, built in the late 1960s, and by four tennis courts, the northernmost of which is used in winter as an ice skating rink. The administration's need was to create a new building that could become the center for all the sports activities in the area. In this sense, the project was conceived not only as a sports facility, but also as a community center and as a gathering space for the community.
By breaking down the program into two distinct shifting volumes, it was possible to obtain a small square, conceived as a meeting place and as a new access, located between the tennis courts and the skating rink to the south and the outdoor swimming pools to the north. Furthermore, the main building has been divided into two volumes, one completely covered by natural wood containing the dining “stube”, and a second one made of exposed black concrete, where there are the changing rooms, differentiated by color and lit from above. Above, the large projecting roofs mediate between internal and external space and mark the landscape with a strong horizontal sign. The design is composed by few simple elements, using pure and elementary geometric forms which are related to the place through the use materials: the larch wood that covers the bar and the “stube” is the same material used for local domestic buildings, the dark pigmented exposed concrete contains local aggregates that have the same natural tones of the landscape, and a local stone, the “gneiss of the Passeiertal”, is used for the bar counter.