De Zande Community Institution / BURO II & ARCHI+I

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Text description provided by the architects. The sports hall is the second phase of the master plan and follows completion of the school. It was decided in close consultation with the municipality to give the sports infrastructure twofold usage by making it available to the youth institution and by letting it form part of the municipality’s public sports infrastructure.

The building occupies an important place in the urban environment. Its proportions are based on those of the adjacent shed that will be thoroughly renovated in the third phase of the master plan. It will be given (in part) a public and central purpose.

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The location of the sports hall - between the busy St.-Andreaslaan and the ‘straight path’ on the site of the youth institution - is an important fact symbolically and physically. This is because the building personifies a ‘bridge’ or a transition between a temporary stay in the youth institution and a return to public life and mainstream society. Sports are an essential element of the programmes for providing guidance to the young people. Sport acts as a catalyst for reducing stress factors and it eases a gradual transition towards life outside the institution.

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During school hours the girls use the sports accommodation, while the sports hall is open to the public for the municipality’s residents mainly in the evening and at the weekend.

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