The new Sports Palace is sited next door to its predecessor on the Antwerp ring road. It is part of a scheme that combines Willem Jan Neutelings' future scenario for the Antwerp ring road with new sports facilities. The scheme situates the hippodrome, the stands, the projected stadium for Anderlecht football club and a mega sports complex (the Sports Palace) on that ring road. It further meets the growing need for sports facilities in the city centre and picks up on the potentialities of the ring road, which is closed once a year for the Antwerp car race.

Its siting on the eight-lane motorway makes the Sports Palace attractive at every level, from local through to international. When everything is in use some 1200 sportsmen and women per hour will compete in front of 8500 spectators, a further 4500 seats being added for the annual car race. With its 2000 regular parking spaces, the complex will have its own slip road - a circuit also to be used for car and cycle races.

The grounds consist of an asphalt surface with sports fields and the old and new Sports Palace set discretely upon it. The complex is organized as objectively as possible. The stacking of sports is not just a question of using the available ground efficiently, but incites head-on confrontation between the various movements; seeing and being seen features heavily in the plan. The entrance circuit for cars continues inside the building as a pedestrian route. Of the various layers comprising the complex, the lowest three are outdoors. Above them hangs a sealed box with two sports levels each 8.1 metres tall. The area in between consists largely of a void. On one side there is a vertical division into four levels of changing rooms, with at the other side three levels of amusement activities topped off with an extra layer, a rooftop hotel.

Place of education: TU Delft
Specialization: architectuur/architecture
Tutors: Carel Weeber, Henk Mihl, Inge Bobbink & Han Meijer