Netherlands

How can architecture resist exclusionary social norms to create spaces that nurture different ways of coexisting in everyday life? Sidelined explores this question by presenting an alternative sports bar that continues designer Gabriel Fontana’s investigation of social dynamics through the lens of sport. As a cultural microcosm, sport is where group identities are formed and reinforced and, while the aim is togetherness, the result can be divisive, polarising and exclusionary.
In the pavilion, Fontana’s Multiform and Fluid Field projects—alternative team sports that literally redraw the rules and spaces of traditional games—change the rules of the game to reimagine sport as a means to a more inclusive, pluralistic and imaginative future. They extend his exploration from the playing field to architecture to examine how built spaces can be hostile or hospitable.