Lyongo is part of the new podcast series ‘Voices from the Capital’ by the Public Entity Saba. In this 23-minute episode, he sits down with project manager Carine Ghazzi to discuss the exciting vision behind Saba’s new school gym. More than just a sports facility, this gym is designed with sustainability, community, and resilience at its core.

With our design the new gym complies to Olympic standards, making it a place where Saba can even host sporting events on a professional level. Lyongo and Carina will share some insights into the new design during this podcast. We’ll share some of the key takeaways from this episode.

Understanding 

Lyongo: “If you design a new school and in a couple of years find out that you even need more space, then you’ll probably have to adjust the new buildings already. We tried to prevent that with making a Master Plan for the whole campus first. Now we are designing the new Gym, Technical School and Enrichment Center. For us it is very important that you understand and respect the culture and the landscape within you build. Sustainability goes further than just putting solar panels on top of a building. It means working with the climate. When you go outside the gym now you’ll be basically blown away because of the amount of wind. Not typical for a building of two layers, we had a wind study done. Why? This building is actually like a skyscraper. It is 200 meters high since it is on top of a mountain ridge. So, the elements work different here…”

For the community

School has to be a pleasant place to be every day. It should be a community building, being a school from 7AM to 2PM and after it should be a place for the Saban community. In the Master Plan there are also ramps designed so that the school will be accessible to everyone. “We didn’t design an elevator since it needs maintenance. Since Saba has a small population, somebody needs to fly from St Maarten to do maintenance on one elevator and you have to pay them for a full day of work even though they won’t need more than an hour to do the job. That is also part of understanding the place that you design for: what does the community need and how can you make something future-proof for them?”

Making a better gym

This current building has a low pitched roof, which is not ideal for an island in a hurricane region. To illustrate this Lyongo talked about a piece of paper. “When you blow on or under a piece of paper it will start to lift and float. The same applies to a roof when a hurricane hits. So as a designer you can do two things: make the roof more pointed – but then you have to add elements that are vulnerable to leakage. Or choose for the second option, like we did, to make a flat concrete roof. What started as a design for making it hurricane-proof, ended with a space that students can use as well. We’ve designed a sporting field on top of the gym so students can exercise outside and enjoy the surroundings.”

Ventilation

Carina: “In the new plan the elementary school and the high school will be connected with each other and the gym. Making it easier for children to meet each other. We hope with the new gym that we can make it more enjoyable to sport – on top of the gym or inside. Right now, the main concern for the gym is the ventilation; it is often too hot inside to exercise because there isn’t any proper ventilation.”

The solution in our design is actually quite simple, as Lyongo explains. “You need to have openings on a human level. Right now the openings are quite high. So the wind will blow over you when you’re exercising. Wind that passes your skin will cool you down, so we made sure to make more openings on the gym court – but also on the stands-level so that visitors are comfortable too.”