SPORTS AND

CONVENTION CENTER
RESEARCH PAPER

CAOC, ERISHA JEAN P.

BSAR-4D
Government Center – area devoted to national and regional government office, structures and
institutions. Provinces, cities and municipalities shall endeavor to establish a government center
where offices, agencies, or branches of the national government, local government unit or
government-owned or controlled corporations may, as far as practicable, be located

In designing such center, the local government unit concerned shall take into account the
existing facilities of national and local agencies and offices which may serve as the government
center. The national government, local government unit or government-owned or controlled
corporation concerned shall bear the expenses for the construction of its building and facilities in
the government center.

CONVENTION CENTER

Convention center - is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals
and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typically offer
sufficient floor area to accommodate several thousand attendees. Very large venues, suitable
for major trade shows, are sometimes known as exhibition centres. Convention centers typically
have at least one auditorium and may also contain bon concert halls, lecture halls, meeting
rooms, and conference rooms. Some large resort area hotels include a convention center.

Convention centers are among the key players in the convention industry, make a
critical economic contribution to the destination and present an important consideration in
meeting planners' site selection process. Given the substantial investment in convention centers
in recent years and the increased competition among them for business, an understanding of
critical facilities, attributes and services is vital. This article assesses convention delegates'
perceptions of the importance of select venue facilities, attributes and services. Furthermore,
the performance of one of the top convention centers in Asia is assessed, identifying its
strengths and weaknesses on the basis of an importance-performance analysis.

What does the future hold with respect to convention center design? What emerged through
architects’ philosophies and approaches area a number or related trends, beginning with
relationship of the building to the destination and its residents. These trends will define not only
the appearance of convention centers but how these buildings will be used, by attendees and
locals alike.

At Populous, Kansas City, Mo. Based principal Michael Lockwood wants to connect
convention centers with their communities by changing the dynamic of the design process. “As
architects,” he says, “we typically come into the equation once a city had decided that we’ve got
X amount of dollars to spend on X amount of space. But we try to get out of that traditional
position, and help cities understand the bigger picture of the destination, the district, how the
convention center can be conceived of in a much bigger way.”
 To do so, Populous holds an annual gathering to which varied group is invited, including
planners, building operators, and convention and visitor bureau officials. “Sometimes we just sit
back and listen,” says Lockwood. “We just get them together and let them talk about what it is
they all want. Because they don’t necessarily have the ability in their own towns together in a
friendly, open-minded kind of way to workshop and rise above their day-to-day requirements
and think bigger about the destination. “For projects awarded to Populous, discussions of this
nature result in Lockwood and his team being able to create “a more nimble facility that
accommodates more city interests.”

As for trends, “we’re seeing a much bigger push toward customer service,” says
Lockwood. That translates to more hotel-like hospitality concerns. “People’s expectations are
higher. They are no longer willing to downgrade their experience to go into a building to have
meeting. If anything, your convention experience should be on part with or better that hotel
experience, or sporting event or going out to a great district in your hometown”

Designing convention center with that in mind is fun, says Lockwood. “Its starts to break
down the formulaic type of meeting and exhibit and ballroom style that typically defines
convention centers.” And that leads to increased focus on lobbies, prefunction and outdoor
spaces – how they may be used for meeting , and also how they interact with more traditional
meeting spaces. Lockwood points to the Populous design work at the Henry B. Gonzales
Convention Center in Antonio as one example.

“We were told to create 20 meeting rooms, at 2,000 square feet each.” Says the architect.
“We designed the meeting rooms to view down into really large public lobby. They’re dispersed
around this public space to make each feel like it has a unique address. You can come into this
cool courtyard space and say “That;s my room up there.” As opposed to looking down a long
corridor and saying “My room is one of these.”
At the Henry B. González Convention Center it is easy to customize the meeting spaces
available to meet the requirements of your event. The Convention Center now offers over 70
versatile meeting rooms for your events or any accompanying breakout sessions associated
with your event. In addition, the improved circulation provides easy access from exhibit halls to
meeting rooms.

Meeting space can be found on all four levels of the Convention Center. Our largest meeting
room is 10,962 sq ft and the unique Cantilever Room features a variety of presentation methods
in a space that is cantilevered over two lanes of traffic into Market Street.

In addition to our meeting rooms, the Convention Center has outdoor plazas and pre-function
space that can serve as your meeting space or as an additional venue to host your event.
More now than ever, convention centers are deeply integrated into life, culture and urban setting
in which they exist. It’s a trend that continues to gather momentum and it can manifest itself in a
variety of ways, such as the addition of publicly accessible restaurants and establishments.
Perhaps more significant to the communities surrounding convention centers are the civic
spaces that are being add, such as public plazas and promenade. At the Cleveland Convention
Center, most of the facility’s roof is a public park in the middle of the city, an updated version of
the outdoor gathering space the site has been for the past century.

One important factor driving such designs is the need to maximize the efficient use of
urban space. Convention Centers are too big to be just a building. They really need to engage
other activities relevant to the Urban settings while providing spaces that can be used and
appreciated by the public, the goal is to provide meeting attendees a window quite literally into
the life of the city. While great windowed walls aren’t entirely new, what’s trending is the
increased flexibility and usefulness of the space upon they shed light. For example, the
prefunction area was used as meeting space, and the meeting space was used for registration,
coat check and prefunction support.

Planners wanted their delegates to feel connected to the city. They wanted to be out in
this glassy, open prefunction area, even for their meeting. Anticipating such uses for the spaces
was a key part of the design. Being able to anticipate all the ways spaces can be used and
making sure they’re large enough for different types of configuration is really important.

`Robert Svedberg, tvs design principal believes convention centers should tell a story.
“One of the things we’re doing with clients is understanding the destination story, and trying to
tell that story in a very sophisticated way with the design of the building.” He says. It should
invites residents to embrace the building and provides a richer, destination-specific experience
for attendees. Destination officials have become far more interested in the subtleties of
storytelling and the creation of rich visitor experience than they are in immediately recognizable
buildings.

SPORT COMPLEX

A sports complex is a group of sports facilities. For example, there are track and field
stadiums, football stadiums, baseball stadiums, swimming pools, and Indoor arenas. This area
is a sports complex, for fitness. Olympic Park is also a kind of sports complex. It is a large and
expansive area that incorporates several fields or courts dedicated to a particular sport or series
of sports. These types of sports facilities are often used for tournaments and leagues because
they can hold a significant amount of people to watch the teams play. Sports Facilities Advisory
has helped a number of organizations, including schools and universities, create sports
complexes for their athletic departments. The facilities that are built all over the world for the
Olympics are a prime example of a sports complex. Other common examples of sports
complexes are football stadiums, track and field stadiums, and swimming complexes.

Sports and sports facilities development have improved rapidly over the past years in the
Philippines. However, such improvements are inadequate compared to the overall development
of sports at international level. Through preliminary interview with the managers, it was learnt
that the sports facilities are underutilised and people do not use them. In addition, an increase in
the amount of public money being spent on the sports facilities, as well as the increase in the
number of sports facilities, necessitates the demand to investigate issues surrounding sports
facilities development. Universally, there is a current sports facilities development boom.
Recent developments are providing new roles for sports facilities in urban areas. However, it is
accompanied by changing the cities strategies for large scale development. Although there are
many research findings, there are still on-going debates on how to effectively use public money
for sports facilities development. Through reviewing the current literature, it can be concluded
that the impacts of sports facilities and the ability to affect urban surrounding areas depend on a
wide range of factors, including location, context, and usage of the facilities, as well as the
culture of sports among people. The aim of this paper is through reviewing the current literature
on sports facilities worldwide to identify the gap and address issues on the development of
sports facilities in the Philippines. The paper argues that simultaneously with the current
interest on sports and sports facilities development in Philippines, there is a need for a new
perspective and a new approach for sports facilities development in the future.
There is a current sports facilities construction boom universally. These facilities are for hosting
sports mega-events, such as Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, or for smaller scale
activities. Most of the literature on sports facilities come from the North American experiences
as their professional sports facilities are very popular. The US context, involving national
sporting league with big crowds at each game and team franchises which are mobile between
cities, in addition, the rises of the so-called ‘entrepreneurial cities’ enhance the competitiveness
of cities within the framework of a globalising economy. Sport has transcended the boundary
from being considered as an active leisure pastime to being recognized as having considerable
social and economic influence in contemporary society (Davies, 2005). There are various trends
and rationales utilised to supports sports facilities development. However, they could provide
better public subsidization. Although many researches have done studies to investigate their
claims, there is still an ongoing debate on whether to build new sports facility with public funds
(Sam and Scherer, 2008). It is due to the requirement of a large amount of money for
construction, almost certainly with substantial public investments, and which involve too much
money as compared to the cost benefit analyses. There are also the needs for ancillary
construction which are often built at public expense with every provision of a new facility. In
addition, there is a high cost for maintenance, and the truth is that it is now very difficult for a
sports facility to be financially viable without some degree of subsidy (John et al., 2007). There
are a wide range of positive and negative impacts that sports facilities construction have on their
surrounding areas and wider cities. In particular, they may have political, economical, social,
physical, legal, environmental, and safety impacts. At the same time, they require huge public
investment and there is a need to reconsider whether there is enough justification for their
funding. Some examples of physical impacts include generating new construction in the district,
reusing of vacant building, changes in land use, and spin-off development. Furthermore, there
are capabilities to provide substantial social benefits. They might create community, improve
interaction, provide recreation, intangible benefits, and alleviate deprivation. In addition,
improved transportations could lead to benefits for local communities. On the other hand,
congestion, litter, traffic, vandalism, noise, and wrong kind of clientele are some examples of the
negative impacts that sports facilities generate on their surrounding areas.

Sports lighting
Lighting is a subject area with a high degree of technical complexity that can be difficult to
understand. The complicating factors which need to be taken into account in developing a
lighting design may include:

• The varying and conflicting requirements of individual sports in a multi-sports facility.

• Complex inter-relationships with other elements of the building such as reflectance and colour
of surfaces, variation in background surfaces

• Health and safety issues, for example in swimming pools or in fast moving ball games such as
cricket or hockey, where the maintenance of a good lighting system is a fundamental
requirement. It is recommended that anyone considering a new installation or upgrade of their
sports lighting, appoint an appropriate professionally qualified organisation, who will be required
to develop the:

• Sports lighting performance requirements into acceptable design solutions and specifications.
• Other environmental lighting that will be required for support areas in and around the building
or outdoor pitch.

• Related systems such as electrical supply, wiring and controls. Design considerations It is
important that the lighting requirements of each sport are fully understood at the outset of a
project. Lighting installations for sport should balance the folliwing issues within an integrated
design:

• Levels of illuminance.

• Uniformity of illuminance.

• Contrast

• Glare control.

• Colour rendering.

• Compliance with statutory regulations.

Other considerations include:

• Volume of the field of play.

• Lamp types.
• Level of illumination appropriate for a particular sport and level of play, nternational, national,
club and community.

• Glare.

• Colours of surfaces.

• Sport specific safety issues. Developing a design strategy Sports lighting should be considered
early in the building design process. The following are key steps in developing a lighting design
strategy:

• Confirm the layout(s) of sports areas.

• Definte the volune(s) of the field(s) of play.

• Identify adjacent areas with visual links.

• Establish the general lighting requirements. • Establsih the lighting requirements for the
invidivual sports and courts. Lighting of multi‑sports indoor facilities The principal aims and
objectives in lighting a sports hall include:

• The provision of a safe, enjoyable environment for players. • The illumination of court markings
and key

• Features such as nets and goals for the player and match officials.

• The provision of suitable and sufficient lighting for spectators.

• The provision of lighting for television broadcasting, where applicable. Outdoor sports lighting
Recent years have seen a rapid growth in the number of floodlit outdoor sports facilities.
Outdoor sports lighting is now regularly seen at:

• Artificial grass pitches

• Natural turf pitches

• Multi use games areas (MUGAs)

• Tennis courts

• Athletics tracks Outdoor sports lighting can help create more playing and training opportunities
for playing areas and offer increased programming flexibility for users. Before deciding to install
floodlights, it is important that the cost benefits of the lighting are considered. The benefits
include:

• Increased use of the facility.

• Programming flexibility.

• Additional income.
• Usage options. The disavantages which are predominatly cost-related are:

• Capital cost.

• Energy costs.

• Maintenance.

• Management and supervision. 12 Sports Dimensions Guide June 2016

Indoor sports - summary of recommended lighting levels (lux). The total amount of visible light
illuminating a point on a surface from all directions above the surface. The standard unit for
illuminance is Lux (lx). For a lamp it normally refers to the total light emitted irrespective of the
directions in which it is distributed. One lux equals one lumen per square metre. This
information does not include televised events unless specified.

Sport Level of play Horizontal lux

Site Planning
Site planning involves arranging structures on the land and shaping spaces between
them. It is an art linked to architecture, and city planning. The site plan locates objects
and activities in space and time. It may be concerned with a small cluster of houses, a
single building and the surrounding space, or a small community built in a single
operation.
Environmental Factors
Environmental study for architectural design involves collection of data, reconnaissance survey,
creative ability and imagination, and the design of solutions to solve building problems.

When an architect is given a design assignment, there are many environmental factors that are
to be considered. The site is the major factor that has to be considered. Site means the area or
the land that is meant for the construction of the proposed project. Site Planning is the art and
science of arranging the various portions of a particular piece of land according to their uses.
The site planner decides on the uses of the site in detail by selecting and analyzing it for the
various characteristics of soil, slope, vegetation, etc.

The landscape involves the design of outside space. This should be thought about carefully to
make an architectural design complete. The climate at the location at the site is very important
as it affects the building that is to be constructed. Services such as water supply, drainage,
sanitation, electricity, fire protection, air-conditioning system, etc. also have to be considered in
order to make an architectural design complete.

Identification of site and its preparation

Each site has a unique nature of its own. The purpose for which it is to be used should be
clearly understood. Every site when disturbed takes time to experience the mutual adjustment of
its elements. For example, the flow of water creates a drainage pattern. Many factors are
involved in the analysis of the site. These include the factors above the ground, below the
ground and on the ground, as discussed in the following.

Natural Factors
 Geology
 Topography-slope analysis
 Hydrography-streams, lakes, swamps
 Soil – classification of types and uses
 Vegetation
 Wildlife
 Climate factors – solar orientation, summer, winter winds, humidity, precipitation
Geology
The type of rock below the surface of soil, the depth, and the characteristic features of rock
should be identified. Such rocks could act as a foundation for many buildings. These are natural
and could form visible landforms. The stability of such geological formations is also important.

Topography
The form of land is called its topography. This is the most important factor to be analysed.
Geology and the slow process of natural erosion (soil being worn away because of wind or
water) are responsible for landforms and slopes. A topographic survey will reveal the badly
drained areas and natural drainage channels. It will be also reveal places that have good views
and parts of the site that are visible or hidden from any selected point outside the site. The
slopes will decide the roads and paths; a steep slope will increase building costs.

Hydrography
Hydrography provides information about all types of water bodies present in and around the
site: lakes, streams, any marshy land(swamps), or natural wells. It also reveals the availability or
otherwise of a groundwater table and the depth at which it is available.

Soil
The different types of soil present are analysed. Soil decides the stability of land, foundation,
suitability, excavation, erosion, drainage, and plant growth(as the top soil is essential for good
plant growth). The bearing capacity of soil is an important factor to be considered while locating
buildings.

Vegetation
A study of vegetation helps in locating large existing trees, which can be retained. These can be
used for providing seating. The ecology of the area should also be examined to know what
plants or shrubs would grow in that area.

Wildlife
This is an important consideration when choosing sites for parks and recreation. Fishing and
hunting are major recreational activities. The selection of land suitable for such activities
depends on natural wildlife present in the area. Wildlife also adds form, colour and movement to
the landscape.

One might also want to be informed about the wildlife present in the area to preserve it and not
disturb the animals natural habitats due to the construction.
Climatic Factors
Across a piece of land, the elevation difference, character of topography, vegetation cover, and
water bodies influence the climate of that area. On the other hand, precipitation and
temperature are the major factors affecting vegetation. In cool and temperate climates,
vegetation may be used to block winter winds.

Cultural Factors
 Existing land use – ownership of adjacent property and off-site nuisance
 Linkages
 Traffic and transit-vehicular and pedestrian circulation on or adjacent to site.
 Density and floor area ratio
 Utilities – sanitation , water, gas, electricity, stormwater drainage.
 Existing buildings
 Historic factors – historic buildings and landmarks.

Existing land use

This implies a survey of the present status of the land-whether it is residential, commercial,
industrial or recreational. The ownership of the adjacent site will also affect the land being
surveyed.