Emileon Sports Centre  

Agrinio is a landlocked city surrounded by a picturesque landscape in southern Greece.  Amongst the fields on the outskirts of the city is a new aquatic and sports centre.

The brief was to design a dramatic entrance that incorporated all the support facilities for the newly built swimming pool (realized in the shape of the local football team’s logo). The program is organised in playful organic forms to create a building in the landscape.  A long curved black wall addresses the road and conceals a raised plateau that supports a café, bar and facilities. The plateau is accessed by an indulgently voluptuous stair. There is a sense of discovery climbing from the everyday quality of the road up to the fantasy world of the artificial beach plateau overlooking the pool.

status: under construction
program: entry, ticketing, café, bar and support facilities for sports and aquatics centre
area: 2170 m2
budget: 1.4 million euros
location: Agrinio, Greece
collaborator: John Karahalios (architect), Panos Kapsalis (civil engineer)
team: Konstantinos Pantazis, Marianna Rentzou, Beth Hughes, Giorgos Pantazis, Danai Athanasopoulou
year: 2009