The new necessary urgency in the building sector concerning the need for new sustainable solutions has brought many planned sports facility projects to an unwelcome halt.

The search for feasible “escape routes” from seemingly impossible sustainable solutions has been felt in the sector and indeed, some facility projects are at risk of being cancelled in the process. This might seem catastrophical at the local level but hopefully the new standards will be used to screen all projects for necessity. Hopefully some “unnecessary” projects will not pass the necessity-test and wil be cancelled as a consequence.

Our traditional sports facilities were designed with the emergence and growing influence of the competitive concept of sports. Sports participation grew in the first part of the 20th century where especially children and young people were sports active – twice as many men compared to women.

This all changed dramatically during the last third of the century and up to present date. In this period we see an explosion in the numbers of sports active individuals – the growth unfolding not in the traditional competitive sports clubs but in private and self organized activities with the new balance of 50/50 percent men/women and life long activities.