Every groundbreaking project has an origin story. For the new Athletics Park in Bacău, Romania, that story begins more than 2.000 kilometres away in Odense, Denmark. Long before the first sketches were drawn in Romania, the Athletics Exploratorium had already demonstrated that an athletics facility could become much more than a place for organised competition. It showed that athletics could become an invitation to move, explore and connect. Today, the park in Bacău stands as one of Europe's strongest examples of how knowledge, inspiration and international collaboration can reshape the future of sport.
The journey began in 2019 and 2020, when the predecessor of the European Sports and Wellbeing Alliance for Municipalities (ESWAM) introduced the Athletics Exploratorium as one of Europe's most inspiring examples of innovative sports infrastructure. Through webinars, presentations and international knowledge exchange, municipalities, architects and sports professionals discovered a radically different way of thinking about athletics facilities. The project immediately stood out because it did not simply modernise an athletics track; it completely redefined its purpose.
That inspiration became tangible in 2022, when ESWAM's predecessor organised a study visit to Denmark. Participants experienced firsthand how the Athletics Exploratorium had transformed a traditional athletics venue into a vibrant public movement landscape. Rather than presenting athletics as a collection of separate disciplines, the facility encouraged visitors to run, jump, throw, climb and balance in countless different ways. It quickly became clear that the real innovation was not the equipment itself, but the philosophy behind it: designing environments that naturally tempt people to move.
Designed by the Danish landscape architecture firm Keingart in close collaboration with researchers from the University of Southern Denmark, the Athletics Exploratorium challenged more than a century of conventional sports facility design. Traditional athletics venues were created primarily for organised sport and competition. The Exploratorium asked a fundamentally different question: what if an athletics facility were designed first for everyday people, while still serving elite athletes, education and research? The answer became a landscape where running no longer meant simply following a straight lane, where hills became training partners, where throwing disciplines interacted with the terrain and where obstacles, bridges and balance elements encouraged people to invent their own routes and challenges.
What truly makes the Athletics Exploratorium unique is that it never abandoned athletics, it reinvented how athletics could be experienced. Instead of designing around official competition standards, the project was built around human movement itself. Keingart shifted the focus from linear sport to circular play, encouraging people not only to perform but to discover. Visitors are invited to dare, to master and even to fail. Every hill, obstacle, bridge and pathway offers multiple ways to move, allowing everyone, from children to elite athletes, to create a personal experience. Rather than asking people to adapt to the facility, the facility adapts to human curiosity. This subtle but profound shift has become one of the defining characteristics of the project and one of the reasons it continues to inspire cities far beyond Denmark.
Keingart describes this philosophy as creating "temptations to move." Instead of encouraging people through signs or organised programmes, the landscape itself sparks curiosity. Every feature quietly invites exploration. Children discover a playground, recreational runners find new training possibilities, elite athletes refine their technique, while researchers observe how people naturally interact with the environment. The facility simultaneously functions as an athletics venue, public park, outdoor classroom and living laboratory. This integrated approach is built upon three principles that guide every Keingart project: knowledge, by building upon scientific evidence; empathy, by understanding the local context and its users; and creativity, by challenging conventional thinking. Together these principles produce environments that are not only functional but genuinely inspiring.
“Today, it is widely recognised as one of Denmark's most intensively used and diverse athletics environments...”
The concept quickly proved its value. An independent evaluation commissioned by the Danish Foundation for Culture and Sports Facilities (LOA) found that the Athletics Exploratorium attracted a far broader and more diverse range of users than conventional athletics facilities. Recreational runners, students, schools, elite athletes, families and spontaneous visitors all shared the same space throughout the day. Users consistently described their training as more enjoyable, more varied and more effective because strength, coordination, endurance and balance naturally merged into one continuous movement experience. Perhaps the most important conclusion was that the project succeeded precisely because it strengthened athletics instead of replacing it. Rather than measuring success by the number of competitions hosted, the Athletics Exploratorium demonstrated that a modern athletics facility should also be measured by the number of people it inspires to move. Today, it is widely recognised as one of Denmark's most intensively used and diverse athletics environments, proving that opening athletics to everyone creates far greater societal value than designing exclusively for competition.
Following the ESWAM visit to Odense, the conversation continued beyond inspiration. Recognising the potential for Bacău, ESWAM actively connected the municipality with Keingart, creating the partnership that would ultimately shape Romania's new Athletics Park. The Danish architects translated the principles that had proven successful in Odense into a completely new context, adapting the concept to local ambitions, the surrounding landscape and the needs of the community. Bacău therefore did not copy the Athletics Exploratorium, it continued its philosophy and gave it a distinctly Romanian identity.
This process illustrates something that is becoming increasingly important across Europe. Innovation rarely begins with a blank sheet of paper. It begins with openness, curiosity and the willingness to learn from others. Through international networking, knowledge exchange and trusted partnerships, successful ideas evolve into entirely new solutions. That is precisely the role ESWAM played by connecting people, expertise and ambition across borders.
The real significance of the Athletics Park in Bacău extends far beyond Romania. If Odense proved that an athletics facility can become one of Denmark's most vibrant everyday movement destinations, Bacău now has the opportunity to demonstrate how this philosophy can flourish in a completely different European region. Success will not be defined solely by the number of championships organised, but by children discovering athletics for the first time, families spending active afternoons together, students choosing movement over inactivity and residents returning day after day because the park continuously invites them to explore.
Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of the Athletics Exploratorium. It transformed the conversation from "How do we build a better athletics track?" to "How do we create places where people simply want to move?" From Denmark to Romania, a single idea has evolved into a European movement that places health, curiosity and participation alongside sporting excellence. The Athletics Park in Bacău is not the final destination of that journey. It is the next chapter and the ESWAM knows already the third European destination..............