center for sports diplomacy
2020
Critic: Dan Wood, WORKac
The Center for Sports Diplomacy aims to be a space for recreation, as well as a place where sports spectators are forced to interact with and consume information about social and political issues through a promenade experience.
The spectator experience during sports games is characterized by advertising. This building subverts that experience by projecting messages of social and political justice across its facade. By occupying the space between the existing sports fields on the southwest portion of Randall’s Island, the building forces visitors to the sports events to come into contact with messages of activism.
The interior of the Center contains additional sporting spaces. When visitors come to the interior athletic facilities, they will be met with the other programs in the building: spaces for the development and organization of political and social justice by athletes and the sports industry.
The resulting design will provide space for the activism athletes are already doing, and help it thrive, grow, and impact the national and international dialogue.
