Athletic Business: How to Create Multi-Useful Sports Spaces

From Athletic Business, ““I really do think that the multifunctional facilities are the way things are going,” says Moody Nolan architect Cassandra Bukowski, who has been making sports spaces for more than a decade. In that time, she’s seen the choice for a multifunctional facility gain steam, largely because of what it can do: serve many needs and make money.

“I think sometimes these midsize multifunctional arenas provide you with a lot of flexibility that you don’t expect to get out of them when they’re designed,” Bukowski says.

In recent years, flexibility is a concept that’s proved especially useful during pandemic life.

“Even projects that weren’t designed as multifunctional,” Bukowski says. “The Pavilion Arena at Ohio State was designed to be the home for volleyball and wrestling, but through COVID, they really capitalized on the fact that it was a smaller arena” suitable for Buckeyes basketball amid attendance restrictions.  “So they didn’t have to open up the 12,000-seat Schottenstein Center when no one was allowed to be in there.”

Instead of finding the need for flexibility after the build, architects today point out ways in which intentional multi-use facilities can deliver more for schools, athletics programs and communities.”