Actfit Arena, located in Hennur, Bangalore, is a sports court that does more than reduce its environmental impact; it builds for the future as well. A vastly multifaceted program statement has been incorporated into the spaces in such a way that the project has become highly sustainable.
There were three main ideologies at work in the design strategy: recycling and repurposing leftover materials and furniture; incorporating as much natural ventilation and lighting as possible via different skin openings; and following Linearity and Spatial Articulation by intersecting the balanced geometries of plan, as taught by Ar. Tadao Ando.
The concept was to employ spatial articulation in its truest sense, where every gallery, every quadrant, and every habitable crevice amalgamates with each other, resulting in openness, organisation, balance, and 100 percent utilisation of property area, resulting in zero real estate waste and no dead spaces. Throughout the project, natural lighting is provided via skylights, translucent fiberboards, and transparent tiling around Turbo Vents.
Leftovers from previous DS2 Architecture projects, such as textured wall paint, rebars from a demolished slab, leftover wall panelling, stretched fabric, and wooden door frame lintels were utilized. Bricks from the original workers' quarters were cut out, chiselled, and reused. The wooden cargo crates that the furniture and equipment came in were graded, sanded, and reused as partition boards. Even the shoe racks have been made from reused marble slabs.
It is evident from this project that there is no such thing as waste in architecture, and that every leftover can be put to good use with a little forethought. Almost 92% of this project was built using recycled, repurposed, or reused materials from previous projects.
Ar.Mueen Haris, Founder,
DS2 Architecture
