Sports Park Design: Types, Zoning, and Landscape Planning Essentials
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A sports park is a modern type of park in which physical culture, sport, and active recreation take the leading role. It is designed for mass health improvement, physical development, and the education of the contemporary person.
Sports parks fall into two broad categories: specialised and complex. Specialised parks serve a single sport (such as swimming), cater to a particular age group, or differ by functional purpose — training, demonstration, or therapeutic physical culture. Complex, multifunctional parks are intended for the training and competition of athletes across a wide range of disciplines and are also used for active recreation, health-oriented activities, and the sporting entertainment of visitors.
The zoning of a sports park's territory is largely determined by several planning priorities: a clear circulation pattern; the separation of athletes from spectators and those resting in the park; the loading and evacuation of demonstration, training, and active-recreation facilities; and the allocation of recreational areas where athletes and visitors can restore their physical and mental strength.
Well-considered organisation of health activities and recreation draws crowds of people of every age group. Some — adults and children alike — train in sports sections and take part in competitions of municipal, national, and international significance, while other sports enthusiasts watch them as spectators; older and retirement-age people join fitness and wellness groups.
What types of sports parks exist?
Heavy visitor traffic and the activity of the public have made it necessary to include lecture halls, open-air stages, attractions, exhibitions, board-game areas, children's playgrounds, and reading rooms within the recreation zones, as well as to organise public catering — cafés, buffets, and kiosks. Sports parks are divided into the following zones:
- the sports zone;
- the entertainment zone;
- the quiet-recreation zone;
- the services zone.
What is a hydropark?
A hydropark is a territory with a high proportion of water surface in the overall balance of park areas — bodies of water make up more than 25% of the territory. It is intended for the mass recreation of working people, offering physical exercise and sport, cultural and educational events, entertainment, and quiet rest.
For the most part, the sports and demonstration zones are resolved with regular, formal layouts, while the quiet-recreation zone follows a landscape, picturesque style. Free, naturalistic clearings and the flowing lines of paths and avenues create a restful setting that contrasts with the tense rhythm of the sports courts and the intense activity of participants — training and competing — in the sports zone.
Sporting facilities are oriented, according to requirements, with their long side running from north to south; small deviation angles of 5–15° are permissible, rising to 25° in polar regions. A skittles (gorodki) court is laid out facing north or north-east.
The planting of a park must satisfy requirements for wind protection and noise protection; at the same time it should not shade the playing space, and it should provide a calm backdrop for ball games. Under existing norms, 30–50% of a sports complex's area is set aside for greenery.
The width of the protective planting belts around the perimeter of a sports complex, and near the sporting facilities themselves, should be no less than 2–5 metres, using one or two rows of trees and shrubs. A spacing of 2.5–3 metres between trees within a row is recommended, and 2 metres between rows. When forming protective screens of plantings, an interval of 10–15 metres must be maintained from the boundaries of the playing areas.
Climbing plants make a fine backdrop for a tennis court — Virginia creeper and Amur grape are good choices. In some cases western arborvitae (thuja) is used, since it creates a calm background and shelter from the wind; the plants are set no closer than 5 metres from the edge of the court.
With perimeter planting of sports grounds, the texture and colour of the foliage and the character of the flowering are all taken into account. Plants with pale leaves, along with flowering shrubs such as deutzia and spiraea, are not recommended for framing sports grounds, because the structure of the bush, the openwork of the crown, and the light tonality produce a poor backdrop.
Excluded from the range are plants that litter playing areas and open swimming pools with needles, seeds, or flower petals; those prone to wind breakage (silver maple); those damaged by frost (exotics); and early-shedding species (introduced Far Eastern varieties).
