The Aranya North Shore Community Sports Center
The Aranya North Shore Community Sports Center is built within a newly developed diverse riverside community on a blank site.
On this blank waterfront site, the sports center adopts a portal-frame system to evoke the image of waterfront industrial architecture, establishing a familiar sense of place. Positioned between residential and public zones, it mediates between different scales and serves as a catalyst for diverse indoor and outdoor community activities.
The building is a monolithic rectangular volume (78.2 m × 35.5 m × 12.7 m). The north side features a double-height space contains two indoor basketball courts. On the south, a mezzanine introduces varied functions: the ground floor houses the lobby, jiu-jitsu studio, changing rooms, and water treatment facilities, while the upper level includes a fitness area and indoor pool.
Viewed from the north, the sports center appears as a building without a conventional façade. Its fully glazed curtain wall reveals the interior, while two 18-meter-wide operable doors allow direct access to the courts, bypassing the lobby and enabling flexible public use.
To the west, an outdoor pool is enclosed on three sides by layered walls that define entry and modulate sightlines. A pavilion with lockers acts as both entrance canopy and buffer between pool and building. The west-facing lobby (20 m × 9 m), arranged around a central island, is compact yet functions as the main circulation node.
The sports center adopts a protal-frame system typical of industrial buildings, composed of prefabricated concrete columns and a steel truss roof, creating a single large-span space. The mezzanine is structurally independent and inserted within this system. To meet varying HVAC needs, the basketball and badminton courts, fitness area, and indoor pool are treated as separate climate zones.
The interior vertical partition columns are non-structural. They serve as glass mounting frames and conceal 12 roof drainage pipes. Their alignment with structural columns on the façade adds complexity to the spatial experience.
The roof features a uniform lighting layout. While the basketball and badminton courts expose the structural system, the gym and indoor pool adopt suspended ceilings. A consistent alignment of lighting and equipment forms a unified overhead plane, reinforcing the spatial clarity of the structural frame.
CREDITS
Architectural and Interior Design: Atelier XUK
Prop and Exhibition Design: Link Architects
Architects in Charge: LIU Kenan, ZHANG Xu
Design Team: SHA Weiqi, DENG Tian, HUANG Lin, DAI Yishu, ZHANG Shuo, LAI Dawei, ZHOU Jinni, CAI Tian, WANG Sizhe, TANG Huilian (Intern)
On-site Architect: DENG Tian. YAO Ziyi (Intern)
Structural Design: Shanghai Sanyao Structural Consulting & Design Co.,Ltd
Structural Adviser: MIAO Jianbo, CHEN Tong
MEP Design: Shanghai ZhiSheng Architectural Decoration Design Co., Ltd
MEP Adviser: YU Xiaoming, FAN Xin, MAO Bei, LUO Jin
