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Rethinking traditional training grounds

GHB Landscape Architects created the first Football Exploratorium in Herning with the support of The Danish Foundation for Culture and Sports Facilities
text by Lars Hjorth Bærentzen and Mikkel Hjort, photos courtesy of GHB Landscape Architects

In 2008 the football club Herning Fremad in Jutland contacted The Danish Foundation for Culture and Sports Facilities. The club had a very typical football training facility with 8 pitches spread on a vast territory of about 70,000 sqm. They wanted something new and different. As is typical in Denmark the local municipality owns the area but the club can work on improving it in cooperation with the municipality.
At the same time the foundation had begun the work on rethinking and redefining traditional training grounds. The idea was to create new areas that could be opened up for everyone. This is quite a revolutionary idea as training ground for one sports use (such as football) are normally only used by members of the football club and no one else.
The foundation started workshops with participation of leaders of the football club, professional football coaches as well as kids’ amateur coaches, GHB Landscape Architects and the municipality of Herning. The project evolved through several workshops and then GHB Landscape Architects worked on it as architects.
In 2009 the foundation granted financial support of approximately 530,000 euros for the project. From 2009 to 2010 other foundations were asked to grant money and the municipality of Herning also decided to support the construction