The new regional performance centre at Gateshead Stadium provides the latest refinements to a series of five specialist English Institute for Sport (EIS) complexes completed by FaulknerBrowns Architects in the last five years.
The centre is the most environmentally sustainable building of its type, having achieved the highest BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) rating awarded by the British Research Establishment for a specialist sports facility.
The building creates a low embodied energy environmental buffer to the adjoining busy road, employing gabions filled with reclaimed bricks from the local brick factory. This theme has been further developed in the use of recycled water and a low energy heating and ventilation system.
Perhaps the most sustainable aspect of the project is the relocation of the sports faculty of Gateshead College onto the Gateshead International Stadium Site. This has allowed college academic areas and sports facilities such as treatment rooms and studios to be fully integrated into the scheme.
The facility builds on themes developed by FaulknerBrowns at the EIS facilities at Loughborough University, Sheffield and Manchester, all pioneering the integration of sports medicine and sports science units with sporting activity areas.
Pic: Gabions filled with reclaimed bricks from the local brick factory
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