Beach City 2.0

In 2012 Shift architecture urbanism made a spatial vision for Beach City on behalf of the municipality of The Hague. Building on the study of Shift architecture urbanism, the Beach City Foundation has asked Shift to contribute to a supported programmatic vision for the total concept. All the different stakeholders (water sports, beach sports, boardwalk sports, catering pavilions and the stadium) were represented in drawing up this vision. Based on this programmatic vision, Shift has made a design proposal for the location in collaboration with LOLA landscape and POSAD spatial strategies. This design takes the extension of the Scheveningen boulevard as a starting point and concentrates a large number of different sports in a sports dune, a sports square, a sports boulevard and a sports quay.

The Beach Sports Accommodation (BSA) is central to the design. The BSA is the programmatic heart of the area and facilitates the various sports landscapes. In addition, it also facilitates the beach stadium that descends on the beach in the summer months.

The beach sports accommodation is a flexible building that enables a wide range of user scenarios, a contextual building that responds to the unique location on the beach, boulevard and sea and a connecting building that makes the link between the higher situated square and the beach and the various (sports) activities.

The building consists of two main functions: a permanent Beach Sport Accomodation (BSA) and a temporary Beach Stadium. The BSA functions as the center of Beach City all year round. Here are facilities for the wide variety of athletes who visit Beach City as well as other visitors. In addition to a sports canteen, the BSA houses multifunctional spaces that enable the building to accommodate a wide range of usage and exploitation scenarios. There are changing, shower and locker facilities specifically for athletes.

The Beach Stadium will be added to the BSA in the summer season, or will only be built at the time of major events that require such a stadium. It consists of temporary stands around a Center Court and is enclosed by a lockable boundary. This makes the stadium suitable for sporting events and other types of events that can be both freely accessible and “ticketable”.

The BSA is located at the head of the square, at the end of the new boulevard. This prominent position gives the building a landmark function for Beach City. A landmark that makes Beach City clearly visible and accessible from the Scheveningen boulevard, the beach and the sea. The positioning of the Beach Stadium on the sea side of the square guarantees the visibility of the BSA.

The BSA is an all-sided building consisting of four quadrants, separated by 2 axes that form a central hall in the middle. Each quadrant has its own function and shape that is derived from its specific orientation.

The quadrant, oriented towards the sea and the beach, contains the canteen whose round glass façade underlines the panoramic view. The quadrant aimed at the Beach Stadium is designed as a round bite out of the building that connects to the contour of the temporary stadium, which contains a multifunctional space that can be used as part of the canteen as well as separately as a skybox towards the stadium. The quadrant towards the boulevard and square contains a cluster of multifunctional spaces designed like a glass house. The quadrant towards the windward-facing part of the beach, where the permanent beach sports fields are set up during the bathing season, is designed as a grandstand with all the changing, shower and locker areas for the athletes underneath. These facilities are directly accessible from the beach via an entrance in the grandstand.

The two transparent axes through the building make the building publicly accessible from both the sports beach and the square. From the main entrance on the square one looks and walks straight through the building towards the open beach. The axis transverse to this also provides access to the building from the private part of the sports beach.

The grandstand makes the roof of the building accessible. This creates a public viewpoint from which one has a panoramic view of Beach City. By also making the roof accessible from the building, it is possible to design the roof as a terrace and multifunctional space during (sports) events.