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How Medellín’s Four 2010 Games Coliseums Became One Public Landscape

Designed for Medellín’s 2010 South American Games, four coliseums combine three new arenas and a rebuilt basketball hall in one climate-responsive, publicly visible structure.

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The Medellín coliseums built for the 2010 South American Games are four sports halls designed to work as one open, shaded public landscape. Giancarlo Mazzanti and Felipe Mesa used a shared system of steel roof modules, perforated facades and covered outdoor spaces to connect basketball, gymnastics, combat sports and volleyball while allowing passersby to see activity inside without buying a ticket.

The complex was completed for the IX South American Games, held in Medellín from 19 to 30 March 2010. It combined three new arenas with a rebuilt Iván de Bedout basketball coliseum. The design’s central idea was not simply to enclose courts, but to make the edges between sport and public space part of the architecture.

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What were the Coliseums for the South American Games?

They were a four-hall sports complex designed for the 2010 South American Games in Medellín, Colombia. The venues accommodated basketball, gymnastics, volleyball and combat sports. The project was commissioned by INDER Medellín, the city’s Institute for Sports and Recreation, and designed by Giancarlo Mazzanti of Mazzanti Arquitectos and Felipe Mesa of Plan:B Arquitectos.

The project’s name can be confusing: it refers to this specific group of arenas, not to a survey of South American football stadiums or to a later Games venue. The event was the ninth edition of the South American Games, also called the ODESUR Games, and took place in Medellín in March 2010. A FEI overview of the ODESUR Games describes the event as a continental multi-sport competition held every four years, with athletes entered by their National Olympic Committees.

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The project was also an urban intervention. The four halls function independently, with separate entrances, but their related roof forms and covered spaces make them read as one large structure. Mesa described the concept as “a single large urban structure with sporting arenas and covered areas for public zones,” in Beth Broome’s 2011 account for Architectural Record.

How did the project combine four different sports halls?

The architects used one family of structural modules for all four venues. The components remain the same, but their arrangement and height change to suit each sport and to form a continuous, protective roofline.

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Hall Sport What the project did
Iván de Bedout Basketball Retained the existing concrete risers, replaced the roof and reinforced the structure for seismic resistance.
New hall Gymnastics Built with the shared modular structural system, arranged to provide the height and span needed for its sport.
New hall Combat sports Built as one of the three new facilities. Architectural Record calls this venue the martial-arts hall; Arquitectura Viva lists wrestling.
New hall Volleyball Built with the same family of modules, adjusted in section and arrangement for the venue.

The hall labels differ slightly across the project accounts: Arquitectura Viva’s project sheet identifies gymnastics, wrestling, basketball and volleyball, while Architectural Record describes the combat venue as martial arts. These are the sources’ descriptions of the same fourth sport category, not evidence of an additional arena.

Mazzanti explained the modular logic this way: “Every piece of one building is identical to the pieces of the building next to it, just arranged differently.” That repetition allowed the team to make the four distinct halls feel related without forcing every sport into the same interior dimensions. The structural bands rise or fall in section as each venue requires; beyond the enclosed courts, they continue outward as eaves and covered rooms.

What happened to the original Iván de Bedout coliseum?

The basketball hall was not demolished and replaced by a wholly new building. It had been constructed for the 1978 Central American Games, and the 2010 project retained its concrete seating risers while creating a new roof and strengthening the existing structure.

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The architects removed the old roof, reinforced the arena for seismic resistance and incorporated it into the new roof system. The design required six different truss configurations, ordered in parallel arrangements for the existing hall and the three new buildings. This made the basketball venue both a renovation and part of a larger, coordinated architectural system.

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That distinction matters when comparing the four halls: three were new facilities, while Iván de Bedout inherited its bowl and concrete stands. The project’s shared language comes from the roof and surrounding public spaces, not from making every building structurally identical.

Why are the coliseums open to view from outside?

The perforated metal facades were designed to make the interior visible and to connect the arenas to the surrounding city. Their laser-cut leaf pattern filters the boundary rather than turning each hall into a sealed box. People inside can see out; people outside can watch sport without paying for admission.

The architects called this an “open architecture.” Mesa said the approach “also results in social transparency and accessibility,” as quoted in Architectural Record. Mazzanti contrasted the project with conventional coliseums: “In general, coliseums are closed buildings. You can’t see what’s inside. With these buildings you can see everything. This is truly a public place.”

The open edges also create usable space between the halls. Paired steel columns line the covered gaps, forming a forest-like sequence that supports the roof and guides pedestrians through the complex. In Broome’s 2011 report, these areas were being used for pep-squad practice, skateboarding and team warm-ups. Architectural Record also reported that professional teams, schoolchildren and the general public were regularly using the facilities after the Games. Those observations describe use at the time of that article, not a current visitor schedule.

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How does the design respond to Medellín’s climate?

The halls use orientation, openings and shade instead of central cooling. They sit on a north–south axis aligned with the surrounding sports complex, using prevailing northerly breezes. North- and south-facing openings admit airflow, while the stands and extended eaves on the east and west sides help limit direct sun.

Large clerestories formed by the roof’s changing profile bring in daylight from the north and south. Their placement, along with openings at the ends of the buildings, is intended to limit glare while allowing ambient light through polycarbonate channel glazing. The roof therefore serves several jobs at once: it spans the courts, shapes the halls, provides shade to outdoor areas and helps bring light and air inside.

Architectural Record states that the complex has no central cooling. Its account describes concrete floor slabs and precast bleachers beneath a steel structure, facade and roof. Light-gauge steel trusses, set every 16 feet according to the article, rest on paired columns and form box beams that house court lighting. The roof build-up includes fiber-cement board, a waterproofing membrane and metal roofing painted in several greens to echo the surrounding mountains.

The trusses were fabricated off site as modular components, a strategy suited to the tight construction schedule. Architectural Record’s project credits list Corpacero for the steel structure, including trusses with spans of 65 to 85 meters, and Rolformados for the perforated panels. These are project specifications, not evidence that any one material alone accounts for the complex’s environmental performance.

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How were the project’s schedule, area and cost reported?

The city and the Colombian Society of Architects held an open international competition in mid-2008. With the March 2010 Games approaching, the winning team had about 18 months from competition to completion, according to Architectural Record’s 2011 account. The deadline shaped the choice to use repeated steel modules fabricated off site.

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Published area figures do not match, and the sources do not explain why. Architectural Record reported 493,000 square feet and a $50 million project cost in 2011. Arquitectura Viva lists an area of 29,750 square meters for the project dated 2008–2010. The two sources do not identify the same measurement basis or say whether one figure represents gross area and the other enclosed floor area, so the numbers should be attributed rather than treated as interchangeable. Architectural Record prints the cost with a dollar sign but does not spell out a currency; it should not be converted into Colombian pesos or presented as a more specific currency figure.

Neither cited project account provides seating capacity for each hall. The approximately 12,000 spectators mentioned in Arquitectura Viva’s description refers to spectators at the Games, not the combined or individual capacity of these arenas.

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What is known about the Games these buildings served?

The Games were held in Medellín from 19 to 30 March 2010 and opened by Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, according to the edition information compiled in the South American Games article on Wikipedia. The available descriptions differ on some event totals and should not be collapsed into a single, apparently precise account.

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Wikipedia’s Games table lists 3,751 athletes, 15 nations and 31 sports, and identifies Colombia as the leading medal nation. Arquitectura Viva describes fifteen countries, about 3,750 athletes, 42 sports categories and about 12,000 spectators. The sources may be counting sports differently, but they do not provide enough detail here to reconcile the 31 and 42 figures. The figures are therefore best reported with their source and wording attached.

These totals describe the event, not the four-hall complex. The coliseums hosted a portion of the competition; the Games included many sports and venues. In the absence of a capacity schedule or a primary ODESUR statistical bulletin in the cited material, the event’s spectator estimate should not be used to infer how many people any one arena could seat.

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What happened after the original four halls were built?

Arquitectura Viva describes the project as an expandable system of strips and says a fifth coliseum was later built according to the system’s instructions and protocols. That later addition is separate from the four-hall complex described in the January 2011 Architectural Record feature. The available project account does not name the fifth hall’s sport, architect, opening year or floor area, so those details cannot be reliably assigned here.

The original project received first prize in the Colombian Society of Architects’ 2008 public competition and is listed by Arquitectura Viva as a winner of VIII BIAU 2012. The page also notes a Centre Georges Pompidou permanent-collection credit, without identifying which drawing, model or photograph entered the collection. Its publication record includes AV Monografías 239, pages 32–39, in the issue titled “El Equipo Mazzanti,” and Arquitectura Viva 138, “Mosaic Colombia.”

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Why does the complex matter as architecture?

The project’s most important move is the way it treats the space around sport as part of the building. Its repeated modules solve a practical problem—four halls had to be delivered quickly—while also producing a continuous roof landscape. By carrying that roof over the gaps, the architects made circulation, shade and informal recreation visible parts of the complex rather than leftover space between isolated venues.

The design also changes the typical relationship between arena and city. A closed sports hall separates spectators from the outside until they enter through a ticketed threshold. Here, the perforated skin and covered outdoor rooms make activity legible from public space, even though each competition hall remains independently accessible and operational. That combination—distinct venues within a shared, permeable structure—is what makes the Medellín coliseums more than four adjacent sports buildings.

Frequently asked questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Can visitors go inside the Medellín coliseums today?

The sources cited here do not provide a 2026 visiting policy, event calendar or public opening hours. The open facades and public circulation areas describe the design, not a guarantee that a hall is open for casual visits on any particular day.

Why are these venues called coliseums instead of stadiums?

The project consists of indoor sports halls built around courts and competition floors, rather than a single large outdoor field. “Coliseum” is the name used in the project’s English-language coverage; “sports stages” is the title used by Arquitectura Viva.

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Did the Centre Georges Pompidou acquire a model of the project?

The available honor listing says the project has a Centre Georges Pompidou permanent-collection credit, but it does not identify the collected object. It is not possible from that listing to say whether the collection holds a model, drawing, photograph or another item.

Was the later fifth coliseum designed by the same architects?

The project sheet says a fifth hall followed the original system’s protocols so the complex could be expanded by other architects. It does not name who designed that later building.

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