An innovative “stacked” sports center completed on Bordeaux’s Right Bank in 2023, the Cathédrale des Sports is a testament to Paris-based NP2F Architects’ commitment to sustainable and socially inclusive design. The unique, multi-function building, designed in collaboration with the French community sports non-profit Union Nationale des Centres Sportifs de Plein Air (UCPA), won a Holcim Foundation Award in 2017 for its novel architectural approach and minimization of material usage.

François Chas, one of the co-founders of NP2F, says the project allowed his firm to help an emerging neighborhood in the city “demonstrate its dynamism through sport”. The result is a unique high-rise facility for UCPA, climbing over six levels and with a floorspace spanning over 15,700 square meters (over two football fields worth of space). The site offers spaces for various sports, including climbing, paddle tennis, squash, fitness, and golf. The complex is designed to be open and accessible, focusing on natural ventilation and minimal use of concrete.

“Providing access to sport through purposeful minimalism”

A wide array of sporting facilities is brought under one roof within this project in Bordeaux. The structure is an architecture of reduction to minimal means. Only restaurants and shops on the lower levels are enclosed within a façade. The rest of the reinforced concrete structure is mediated by just a braided mesh enclosure that acts as a shading device, windbreak, and ball-catcher without the need for large mechanical systems. This reduction is not only aesthetic. By minimizing heating and cooling costs, the architecture contributes to the project’s aim of providing low-cost access to sports for all.

By combining programs that are usually dispersed and that cater to different user groups, the project acts as a social condenser. This aggregation of activities into one form creates a new and exciting typology – one that could be inserted into any city in need of sporting facilities. The jury commended the project’s contribution to providing access to sport through purposeful minimalism. The open-air approach is thoughtfully mediated by an innovative enclosing mesh that adheres to fire regulations without sealing the building. By carefully including only the bare necessities of architectural infrastructure the project succeeds in providing a generous space of encounter.