The aim of the project is to create a new home for the first team, second team and youth teams of A.S.D. Pallavolo Sicilia. The association has about 200 athletes, as well as the technical, administrative and support staff needed to carry out the activities, which currently take place in various facilities in the province. The project envisages a unitary complex to replace the current fragmentary venues, in a rural area of the municipality of Valverde, just outside Catania and at the foot of Mount Etna. The centre will consist of volleyball courts (for the activities of the various national and youth teams), accommodation for athletes and offices dedicated to the administration of the sports association. There will also be a gym, spa, swimming pools and an outdoor football pitch and beach volleyball courts, all of which will be open to the public in order to create the economic and financial conditions necessary for the association’s activities and the implementation of the project.
Our intervention
The sports facilities were designed along a perfect north-south axis, both because of the view of the Gulf of Catania and to enhance the slight slope of the proscenium terrain. The architectural design is characterised by broken lines, large glazed facades and ribbon windows to suspend the roofs. The mixed reinforced concrete and steel structural system denounces the second type by illuminating in red the sloping tubular pillars. The usable flat-roof of the main building will be available to the public for recreational purposes and as preferential terraces for the swimming pools and volleyball courts, in a framed landscape that embraces both the sea and Etna.
The perimeter walls will be of the “ventilated façade” type (swimming pool area, hall/reception) or “cladding” façade, ensuring an adequate level of thermo-acoustic insulation from the external environment. The project foresees the preservation of the existing green areas as much as possible, as well as the refinement of the same by planting indigenous trees or similar species to the existing ones. The internal road system will preferably use, where possible, the existing roads and paths in order to minimise the impact of the new sports complex.
Object of intervention
New multi-sports training centre with public functions
Performances– Stancanelli Russo Associati
Technical and economic feasibility project
Preliminary design
Final design
Client
Pallavolo Sicilia s.r.l.
Year
2015 (pending assignment for enforceability)
Design technology
Building Information Modeling (BIM)
