Designs for an indoor sports facility at the University of Portsmouth have been granted planning permission by the city’s council. Mott MacDonald is providing multidisciplinary engineering services to FaulknerBrowns Architects on the project.
The new 11,000 sq m building, which will be located at the university’s Ravelin Park campus, will comprise an eight-lane swimming pool, fitness suite, sports hall, climbing wall, ski simulator and squash courts, as well as studios, teaching facilities and office space. The sports facility is the first major phase of the university’s estate masterplan, which aims to create a welcoming gateway between the old city of Portsmouth and its city centre campus. The project also includes extensive landscaping to improve the public realm within Ravelin Park.
Mott MacDonald is delivering civil, structural and fire engineering, as well as acoustics, transport, air quality, archaeology and heritage services on the project. The building will set new standards for sustainability for a sports building and is on target to be the first in the UK to achieve a BREEAM Outstanding rating.
Ben Moss, Mott MacDonald’s design lead, said: “In addition to the high sustainability aspirations, the constrained site means that several of the spaces have to be vertically stacked. To solve this challenge, we will bridge one part of the sports hall over the dance studios. The dynamic loadings will also require special analysis techniques to make sure that they meet the required standards for both strength and human comfort.”
Construction of the new University of Portsmouth sports facility is expected to start in autumn 2018, with completion scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020.