The Arena do Morro, a 360-visitor sports complex in Natal, is the first to be completed under the View of Main Louise, a wide-ranging project by Herzog & de Meuron, the Ameropa Foundation and the Nossa Senhora da Conceisan Pastoral Center developed by them in 2009.
Mine Louise - Natal's neighborhood is essentially a favela slum with a strong close-knit community, located between a protected natural area of dunes and a waterfront with commercial development. The task of the Swiss office and their local partners here has been to create a range of public spaces for different types of urban activities. Preliminary research helped the architects to identify missing or undeveloped social functions in Main Louise in relation to its various zones, as well as to find free space in the dense urban fabric where these functions could be realized.
The construction site for Arena do Morro was an old sports hall - a concrete field with columns and trusses without a roof or walls. Since this structure completely occupied the entire site, the new building obeys this line and fills the entire construction site with itself so that it is all under a single gable roof. This introduces a new large scale into the development of the area and, at the same time, is in line with the common tradition in northeastern Brazil of placing public spaces under such large gable roofs. Thus, an archetypal and iconic structure for the local community is obtained.
The spaces of the Arena do Morro are designed as terraces following the profile of the relief. Under a single roof, there are both open spaces with stands and an observation deck overlooking the sea, as well as dance studios, a multifunctional hall, changing rooms and ancillary facilities. The sports complex is separated from the street along the perimeter by a wave-like free-standing wall, echoing the shapes of the arena's round rooms and steps-tribunes. This circular shape emphasizes the social character of the space.
The building seems to complement the block, occupying an empty space in the puzzle of the urban fabric of Main Louise. The calm proportions and uniform white color of the building contrast with the roughness and brightness of the texture of the surrounding buildings. Due to this, the large size of the sports complex does not make it overwhelming, and from a close distance, its volume finally disintegrates into many parts. The ends of the elongated roof open into the city, as if inviting you to enter.
The design is simple and consistent with local construction and material resources. The roof is assembled from standard corrugated aluminum plates. The plates are spaced apart from each other, forming gaps for the penetration of air and light, and, at the same time, layered on top of each other like tiles so that no water gets inside. The curved wall is created from specially designed locally produced concrete blocks. Thanks to the angled vertical slots of each block, it is possible, by turning it in the horizontal plane, to find the degree of openness and privacy of the space required in a particular case.
The roof and walls together form a permeable translucent structure that protects the sports complex from the hot rays of the sun and heavy rains and allows the cool sea breeze to expel the heated air from under the ceilings. During the day, sunlight interacts with shapes and materials at different angles, and at night, the building, illuminated from the inside, looks like an elegant lamp.
However, the success of the project will largely depend on the intensive day and night use of the building, the richness of the program, and most importantly, on how the local residents will receive the new arena.
