Given every two years since 1985, the award is the brainchild of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the International Association of Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS). The ceremony of announcing the winners was timed to coincide with the next IAKS International Congress, held in Cologne at the end of October 2011.
The buildings are awarded gold, silver and bronze medals (and there are five gold medals alone), as well as a special IPC award for barrier-free buildings. In addition, from this year there is an award for students and young architects for the best sports facility design; in this category the winner was Anna Kuchmenko from Odessa with her project of a cycle track.
South Africa became the leader in the main section: gmp stadiums - Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay - won gold and bronze awards, and the National Stadium (Soccer City) in Johannesburg, designed by Populous and the local workshop Boogertman + Partners … All of them were built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In addition, a special award was given to the Khayelitsha Football for Hope Center in Cape Town, the humanitarian project ARG Design and the international organization Architecture for Humanity.
The most successful facility was named the Richmond Olympic Oval, a skating arena for the Vancouver Olympics (a Cannon Design project), receiving not only a gold medal, but also an IPC award for the best facility for people with disabilities.
In addition, among the gold medalists were such structures as diverse in scale as the huge Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo by JDS and the more modest Slovenian Rowing Center in Bled (multiPlan workshop).
Runners-up include the Sjakket Youth Center in Copenhagen by BIG and JDS (created when they were still PLOT) and the Zapat Sports Center in Rijeka, Croatia (workshop 3LHD). One of the bronze medalists was the sports complex of the Swiss Higher Technical School in Zurich (ETH Zürich) of the Austrian bureau Dietrich | Untertrifaller.
Apart from the already mentioned football center in Cape Town, the Deodoro Sports Center in Rio de Janeiro (BCMF Architects) and the Skate Park in Karukh (Afghan province of Herat; Maier Landschaftsarchitektur and Betonlandschaften bureaus) were noted as important humanitarian projects.
N. F.
