When Streetmekka Viborg opens, it will provide facilities for sports like parkour, football, basketball, skating, bouldering and dancing. There’ll be studios for DJing, music production, animation and art, as well as social areas dotted throughout the building. Creating a place with such a strong and unique proposition means little in the way of marketing will likely be needed, with word-of-mouth alone sure to attract visitors en masse. Marketing places is made much easier when they stand out from the crowd.
Of course, the communications strategy that is put together for Streetmekka Viborg will have a wealth of attractive aspects to draw upon. Quite aside from the various sports, music and culture offerings, the regeneration of an otherwise vacant and dilapidated old building will provide an opportunity to inform the brand, as will the planned “greening” of the surrounding area with trees and landscaping.
It is hoped the 4,000-sq m (43,000-sq ft) development, designed by Dutch architect Effekt, will bring “new life to one of the city's many vacant industrial buildings.” Its large interior spaces will be transformed to contain skate ramps, sports courts and rooms, with the building’s covered streetscape being opened up to the outside. Noisier activities will be focused towards the building’s rear, to minimise disturbance for nearby residents and businesses.
Demonstrating empathy in this way will help to curry favour with the local community, while visitors to the facility will also contribute to the local economy. These factors will help to see that Streetmekka Viborg is well received and may well help it to play an important role in the development of the area going forward.
The building’s final party piece will be a striking translucent skin made of poly-carbonate panels. This façade will give it a slick light look during the day, but transform the building into a colorful performance of dynamic silhouettes when it gets dark.
Effekt announced the project earlier this month, having been awarded first place in a design competition. The facility is due to open in January 2018.
Source & images: Effekt
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