A multi-purpose sporting and leisure facility in Bishop Lavis provides a safe and integrated facility for all age groups
Caring city
Inclusive city
Safe city
Well-run city
The Valhalla Park Family Recreation Centre in Bishop Lavis provides a multi-purpose recreational facility that caters to formal and informal sporting codes and leisure activities for residents of all ages. The centre has been built in an area of great need, and aims to help improve quality of life and address the negative impacts of poverty through recreational opportunity. This City pilot project features modern design principles to ensure spaces that are well integrated for maximum community use, and includes (among others) a full-sized soccer pitch, outdoor gym, BMX track, play park, spray park and clubhouse.
The Integrated
Development Plan is a plan for how the City will prioritise its budget spending over a five-year cycle. The IDP is agreed between local government and residents, and is adjusted to accommodate changing needs.
Bishop Lavis, in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, has about 45 000 inhabitants. The area has high levels of unemployment, school drop-out rates and poverty. Emerging squatter camps have increased the social challenges and pressure on service delivery.
The Valhalla Park Family Recreation Centre aims to help address the negative impacts of poverty through dignified recreational opportunities. Its development is the pilot project of a city-wide programme focused on addressing past imbalances through a series of planned upgrades and construction of new quality recreational and sports facilities in areas of greatest need. The programme, managed by the City’s Sport,
Recreation and Amenities Department, will invest more than R132 million over the next financial year.
The design of the centre revolves around the provision of more informal sporting and activity facilities for use by various age groups in an interactive and social manner. Modern design-led thinking principles
Community Services
Directorate:
Sport, Recreation &
Amenities Department
Economic,
Environmental & Spatial
Planning Directorate:
Spatial Planning &
Urban Design
Department
This case study describes one of the City of Cape Town’s innovative projects that demonstrates how the
City applies design-led thinking to support City strategies and goals and help to improve the lives of residents. For more, scan the QR code alongside or see www.capetown.gov.za/WDC2014/
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#061: VALHALLA PARK FAMILY RECREATION CENTRE have helped to create an environment where elements are fully utilised by the community they serve, and the various spaces work and co-exist well together. The facility consists of a plaza, pathways, BMX track, informal cricket field, two mini-soccer synthetic pitches, two mixed-use courts, one full-sized synthetic soccer pitch, a spray park (also called a splashpad, where children can cool off in safety), playground equipment, outdoor gym equipment, a change room and ablution facility, a multi-use clubhouse, a flatlet for a caretaker and outdoor ‘reading rooms’ for community interaction with library activities.
CARING CITY : The Valhalla Park Family Recreation Centre – and other planned multi-use sporting and recreational developments – is an investment in the future of Cape Town’s communities. This type of facility increases the emotional, social and physical health of a community.
INCLUSIVE CITY : Sport and recreation are excellent ways to unite a community, and providing facilities in poorer areas helps to keep the youth safe, and offers motivation and goals.
SAFE CITY : The design of, and access to, the facility allows for a friendlier and crime-free community by creating an opportunity for a place of engagement, play, and communication. This creates a platform for connection and thus protection.
WELL-RUN CITY: The facility provides opportunities for the present and future generations. The project was planned, facilitated and completed in excellent time.
Of the key tools which support design-led thinking in project conception, creation and implementation, the following are fundamental to the success of this project:
+ INNOVATION CO: Solid design principles and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking were used during the design phase. This has been achieved through the landscape architect playing an integral role as the lead designer on projects of this nature. The design is driven by these principles and feeds the other disciplines that will in turn convert this design into a reality.
+ DREAM TEAM: The Valhalla Park Family Recreation Centre constitutes a pilot project within the Community Services Directorate. The Sport, Recreation and Amenities Department partnered with the Spatial Planning and Urban Design Department to create a multi-disciplinary team to undertake the design, management and implementation of this facility. The team has gained the knowledge and lessons learned to fine-tune future facilities of this type.
+ CONSULTATION/COMMUNICATION: Family recreation centres are being selected as projects for implementation because of the informality of the activities that take place within them. They are cleverly designed to integrate formal sporting codes with informal recreation and sporting activities to provide community facilities that cater for a host of age groups, in close consultation with the communities they will serve.
+ EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH: This pilot project aims to showcase inter-departmental collaboration by testing new approaches to facility provision (spray parks) and combining sports facilities in a park setting to create a family recreational centre.
+ QUICK DELIVERY: The project was officially handed over to the contractor on 27 August 2012 and was completed by November 2013. The project was delivered in excellent time given is complexities and complications.
+ OPEN ACCESS TO INFORMATION: The amenities of this project are for the benefit of the community, which has had access to all the information regarding the Centre from its inception.
+ BIG THINKING, LOCALISED IMPACT: Accessible family recreational centres – providing sporting and more casual leisure facilities together – are a growing phenomenon to address the health and wellbeing of communities worldwide. The project involved teams from the Sport, Recreation and Amenities
Department in partnership with the Spatial Planning and Urban Design Department, bringing on broad a range of professional skills and valuable collaboration to the initiative.
Design-led thinking is a collaborative and usercentric process through which challenges are identified and creatively addressed to deliver innovative and relevant solutions. With the responsibilities placed on a city administration, the core driver for embracing design-led thinking is the improvement of the quality of life of citizens, the ethos that underpins the World Design Capital programme.
For an explanation of the key constructs which support design-led thinking in project conception, design and implementation,see the Toolbox.
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#061: VALHALLA PARK FAMILY RECREATION CENTRE
+ COMMUNITY AT THE CENTRE, CREATIVITY ON THE FRINGE: The project aligns itself with the
World Design Capital themes in countless ways. Some of these are the inclusive process involved in conceptualising this project, applying studies to the initial requirements and brief for the facility, understanding the complexity of the community involved, determining what facilities should be provided and how they should be positioned, and consideration of what innovative elements could be added.
Contact Rade Boškovi ć : rade.boskovic@capetown.gov.za (project manager: Sport, Recreation & Amenities) or Gerrit Strydom: gerrit.strydom@capetown.gov.za (urban designer and lead landscape architect: Spatial
Planning & Urban Design)
Design-led thinking is a collaborative and usercentric process through which challenges are identified and creatively addressed to deliver innovative and relevant solutions. With the responsibilities placed on a city administration, the core driver for embracing design-led thinking is the improvement of the quality of life of citizens, the ethos that underpins the World Design Capital programme.
For an explanation of the key constructs which support design-led thinking in project conception, design and implementation,see the Toolbox.
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