EFFEKT to design a new Streetmekka skate facility in Denmark

The Esbjerg "Game Streetmekka" facility by Danish architects EFFEKT celebrates street sports and culture as part of the contemporary urban fabric. Designed in collaboration with MASU Planning, Luke Jouppi, Rambøll Engineering, and local contractor VestByg, EFFEKT's proposal recently won 1st prize in a competition to repurpose a former historic train-engine depot into a new multi-purpose street sports and creative facility for the community in Esbjerg, Denmark.

Once it's open by December 2015, the facility can fulfill the community's skating, athletic, and creative needs year-round, even when local climate conditions aren't so favorable.

Take a gander of the proposal below.

Project description:

"Skateboarding is one of the fastest growing sports in the Western world. Having originated in the streets, the spontaneous and unorganized character of the formerly underground sport does not fit into any of the existing conventional sport facilities and the demand for a new type of facility is ever increasing. At the same time, heavy industry is vacating the city centers leaving behind empty unused wastelands and buildings, often already occupied by skaters, street artists and the like.

EFFEKT's winning proposal transforms the distinct a esthetics of a typical raw industrial building – the train engine roundhouse – into a facility that supports and embraces the new wave of emerging unorganized street activities. The result ; a synergy of vibrant street culture and preservation of authentic cultural heritage."

"Architecturally the new facility is a reinterpretation of the existing structure, which was originally designed as a typical roundhouse with a turntable in the central courtyard. New halls are placed in the same geometry in a variety of outdoor and indoor spaces, each with their distinctive function and expression, creating a coherent multifunctional street culture compound."

"Architect and partner at EFFEKT Tue Foged says: 'The existing setting and atmosphere fit so intuitively with the programmatic brief. Placing an playground for street culture that celeb rates community and creativity on one of the most important historic sites in Esbjerg is also a way to preserve and reinterpret the historic relevance.'

Although there was a series of rich potentials to be released, there was an even more important task in balancing and enhancing the important unique qualities of both the site and the spontaneity of the street culture community."

“The brief was equally exiting and ambiguous; is it even possible to create a framework for the unorganized sports that thrive with spontaneous participation and fluctuating schedules? And can we do so without compromising the cultural heritage of the existing industrial setting? We believe that with this project we prove that we can. Rather than taking the tabula rasa approach deleting history we chose to recycle and reinterpret the circular typology of the train engine depot and turn it into a hybrid of industrial heritage and social activity space,” says Tue Foged.

"The program includes a covered area for transition and bowl skate, interior and exterior street basket courts, a street dance area, an indoor street skate arena, workshop areas for DJ-sc hools and street art, meeting rooms, administration offices, a cafe, kitchen, changing rooms and a large social area and reception. Small niches are located throughout the building to promo te informal hangouts in between activities. In the heart of the compound an enclosed street sport plaza and large outdoor social space is located. This is also the point of arrival where you immediately get an overview of all the ac tivities and their individual location."

Project details:

Project: Streetmekka Esbjerg
Client: Esbjerg Municipality, GAME Denmark, Realdania, Trygfonden
Collaborators: MASU Planning, Luke Jouppi (Beaver Concrete), Rambøll, VestByg
Location: Esbjerg, Denmark
Size: 2,800 sqm
Year: 2014
Status: 1st prize, Under construction
Team: Tue Hesselberg Foged, Sinus Lynge, Mikkel Bøgh, Christoffer Gotfredsen, Gorka Calzada Medina, Filipa Pita, Evgeny Markachev, Yulia Kozlova, Karl-Magnus Boasson, Monica Rafajova, Barbora Jandova, Ewa Kurlanc, Saskia Wolf

All images courtesy of EFFEKT.

Click through the gallery below to see more images.