Traditional silhouette, contemporary character - we present the sports hall of the Ménesbirtok in Mezőhegyes

Europe's first state-owned estate, the Mezőhegyes Ménesbirtok was founded in 1784, and the 10,000-hectare site is still one of the country's most valuable agro-industrial complexes. As the successor to an institution famous for its horse breeding, Nemzeti Ménesbirtok és Tangazdaság Zrt. continues the centuries-old values and traditions of Mezőhegyes, including the equestrian and agricultural vocational training programme launched in 1911.

A new era

In three to four years, the world-famous stud farm has been transformed from its foundations: the theoretical and practical education building, the dormitory opened last autumn and the renovation of the 1860s veterinary villa into a real campus. As László Mucsi, Director of Investment and Development at the Ménesbirtok, pointed out:

"Stables and a riding arena are now under construction, but there is also the renovation of the hotel building. There is an old covered riding school with a huge inner span, the first of its kind in Hungary. Plans for its renovation are also being drawn up."

The Mezőhegyes Technical and Vocational School and College, which has been preserved in its original form and function in more than 230-year-old historic buildings, offers vocational training in farming - including horsemanship - and agricultural engineering. The need for a gymnasium for the 300 students and a multifunctional space for the inhabitants of the village led DAW Architects Studio to design a space that would be functional and meet the needs of the 21st century, while respecting the built heritage. As we learned from László Mucsi on the basic design issues:

"We have only guided the concept at the level of figures, giving the designers a free hand."

Functionally, the 3300-square-metre building is divided into two main spaces: the fighting area and the main building, although forming two well-defined sections inside, are kept together by their homogeneous facade. The head building on the east side houses the lobby and the internal functional core, which can be accessed from the street-front entrance, while the central space on the west side is accessible via a separate gateway for the school's students.

Familiar shapes, dynamic features

Its rational spatial organisation has resulted in a simple rectangular floor plan that resonates well with the surrounding buildings, but the height of the building is also in keeping with the surroundings: the minimum ceiling height in the fighting area is 10 metres, so the floor level of the room is set a full level (3 metres) lower to fit in. The typical pitch of the roof of the estate has also been carried over to the sports hall, but to visually break up the size of the hall, the rear and main façades have been split into two slightly different sized gables, which are fitted together according to the rules of the golden section. This allowed the regular brick body to be closed off by an exciting pitched roof system of varying geometry.

A plywood-glued timber support system provides the structural frame of the building, which proved to be a fortunate choice in many respects: not only does it relieve the hall's forced rigidity, but the natural wood also creates a warm, humane atmosphere. The wood is not only used in the structure, but also as a lamellar cladding for the large façade, reflecting the supporting structure and giving a bouncy rhythm, and as a wall cladding to soften the interior space. This interior-exterior identity of materials and design is reinforced by the transparency of the building's interior and exterior spaces: transparent curtain walls and interior openings that allow natural light to enter the central space throughout the day.

It was a design bravura that the recessed floor level was used to open up an external auditorium, a kind of Greek theatre paraphrase, on the north side - thus the building was almost directly connected to the library building erected in the 1950s. The external grandstand is used as a communal area for students and for classes, but its most important function is to light up the interior of the sports hall in the afternoon. As an added bonus, the ramp on the east side of the arena makes it easy to bring the equipment for a concert into the sports area.

Not just value preservation, but real value creation

The vertically divided wooden elements not only guide the eye on the outside, but also create a sense of continuous movement as a cladding for the interior. The wood cladding, which covers the hybrid structure (wooden support pillars and steel lattice girders) throughout, is only broken up by the dark grey shades of the moulded resin floor, the doors and the metal railings. The monotony of the view is, however, perfectly resolved by the multi-layered transparencies that can be felt in all the spaces of the building.

Equipped with state-of-the-art engineering (ground-source heat pump system, solar panels and presence-sensing lights), the interior is equipped with six changing rooms on two levels, a gym, and referee and teacher rooms, all evidence of thoughtful design.

"You can divide the central space into three parts, but we've also built a climbing wall so it can be used for several purposes at once."

- said László Mucsi. The rib wall is important not only for maintaining the visual unity of the central space, but also for providing a high level of security. A good example of this is the transitional space in the teachers' room, which is bordered by glass from several directions and creates an optical link between the lobby and the court.

So there are many tasks ahead for the managers of the Ménesbirtok, and if their work is dominated not only by the preservation of the old buildings, but also by the environmental sensitivity and the appearance of moderate, yet contemporary solutions in all their elements, as seen in the sports hall of DAW Stúdió, the result will not only be value preservation, but also real value creation.