Game StreetMekka Esbjerg / EFFEKT

Throughout recent years skateboarding has evolved into one of the fastest growing sport in the western world - way ahead of any other leisure or sports activity. However the former underground sport does not fit into any of the existing conventional sport facilities catering to the organized club-sports. How can we create a new type of facility that can support and embrace the new wave of emerging unorganized street activities?

This project combines historical preservation with new raw industrial halls and street sports in a modern cultural and social hybrid of the historic roundhouse train depot.

Rather than erasing the history of the site we propose to rebuild and reinterpret an entire abandoned train depot. We restore existing buildings and add new durable and low-tech industrial halls naturally fitting the historical development and raw pragmatics of the train depot with the aesthetics of street culture.

www.effekt.dk

Project: Street Mekka Esbjerg | Client: Esbjerg Municipality, GAME Denmark, Realdania, Trygfonden | Collaborators: MASU Planning, Luke Jouppi (Beaver Concrete), Rambøll, VestByg | Location: Esbjerg, Denmark | Size: 2,800 sqm | Year: 2014 | Status: 1st Prize in Competition, Under Construction | Team: Tue Hesselberg Foged, Sinus Lynge, Mikkel Bøgh, Christoffer Gotfredsen, Gorka Calzada Medina, Filipa Pita, Evgeny Markachev, Yulia Kozlova, Karl-Magnus Boasson, Monica Rafajova, Barbora Jandova, Ewa Kurlanc, Saskia Wolf

Status: Under Construction
Location: Esbjerg, DK
My Role: Architect / Head of Design
Additional Credits: EFFEKT, MASU Planning, Beaver Concrete, Rambøll, VestByg

The train depot has a central and well-connected location in the city. It is one of the city's oldest buildings but is now abandoned. With most buildings torn down the site appears only as a memory of the 20th century’s industrial heritage.

We propose to rebuild the site with new street sport facilities continuing the historical and pragmatic development of the roundhouse train depot. The distinct circular layout connects new and old and revitalizes the existing halls, turntable and tracks in a new hybrid of industrial architecture and street culture. StreetMekka is organized into five multifunctional Mekka’s. Concrete, Asphalt, Brick, Lounge and Dance Mekka. They lie side by side in the distinct circular layout of the historic train depot connecting new and old halls around the central turntable. Together the new and old halls form a central outdoor street sport arena and social space transforming the old turntable into an amphitheater.