🡠Back
Copy link
Sports Hall for Saint Margaret High School
Architect
Félix Zsolt, Fialovszky Tamás
Company
Építész Stúdió Kft.
Designed in
2018
Built in
2020
Address
1114 Budapest, Villányi út 5–7.
Prizes
Budapest Award of Architectural Excellence, Budapest Award for Architectural
Excellence, 2021
This year, St. Margaret High School celebrates its 100th anniversary. The management had a long-standing dream that, as part of their education program, they could also provide modern sports facilities for students, at the same time create a large hall where the high school may be present with full staff and students at festive events.
The expansion was implemented next to the listed historic school building, placed separately, sunk into the hillside. The large mass of the sports hall is placed underground, the side façades are protruding from the ground, and the gallery level of the south façade is already fully visible. The functional arrangement is simple, clear, and unambiguous. The athlete and spectator accesses are separated in level. The hall and locker rooms are accessible on the level of the high school courtyard, while the visitor lobby and the grandstand can be entered through the gallery at the top of the service rooms. Opening the façade on the stand level at full height illuminates the hall and creates a visual connection with the listed building of the high school.
Due to its function, the building’s mass blending into the hillside has a simple appearance. Its façade is formed by galvanized bars that close the roof-top outdoor track and run down to the ground in front of the gray-plastered façade, thus ‘holding together’ the monolithic mass. The row of bars dissolves in the outer space as a translucent veil, forming a beautiful transition between the building, nature, and the sky.
The interior is artistically simple, clear, bright, and functional. The raw concrete surfaces of the structure are covered with wood cladding at the level of use, keeping the play-level in harmony with the floor. From direction of the stand, natural light diffusely filters through the textile shading, this way it illuminates the hall in an energy- and environment-conscious way and transforms the gym into an event space.
The Sports Hall of St. Margaret High School, built on the southern slope of Gellért Hill, represents an international level of architectural quality. The architects solved an extremely difficult task in a simple, functional, artistic way. With an exemplary design.
Co-designers
Gulyás Bálint, Kenéz Gergely
Garden and landscape design
Takács Dániel
Photo
Kenéz
Gergely
Show on map