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‘Roy of the Rovers’ architecture

Built in 1974-78 to designs by local authority architect Trevor Skempton, the Richard Dunn Sports Centre was named in honour of the local boxer and scaffolder Richard Dunn, who downed tools while working on construction of the sports centre, to fight Muhammad Ali for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1976. He lost the fight, but returned to Bradford a hometown hero. The Centre’s tented ‘big-top’ has been a landmark on the city skyline for nearly 50 years; it’s design was inspired by Kenzo Tange’s pioneering gymnasium for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and it was one of the earliest projects in the UK to make use of Computer Aided Design (CAD).

However, faced with rising maintenance and energy costs, the Centre permanently closed in 2019 and replacement leisure facilities were built at nearby Sedbergh. The Richard Dunn site was earmarked for redevelopment by landowners Bradford City Council, with the building placed on stand-bye in 2020 as a temporary mortuary facility during the Covic-19 pandemic. Faced with the threat of imminent demolition, C20 Society submitted a listing application for the building in late 2021, and in April 2022 it was designated at Grade II listed by DCMS – one of the first leisure centres of its type to be nationally listed.

Though listing spared the building from the bulldozer, the Centre has since remained empty and fallen prey to vandalism and arson attacks. Last month it was even used as a dystopian filming location for Danny Boyle’s forthcoming zombie apocalypse feature 28 Years Later.

Without a new vision for the building, its long-term future is far from certain.

Heaven is a Halfpipe?

Following news of the listing, local newspaper the Telegraph & Argus ran a poll on what should happen to the building. Of the nearly 3,000 respondents, by far the most popular response was as a skatepark.

Further research with Skateboard GB – the national governing body for skateboarding in the UK – confirmed that the city is chronically under-served with the suitable facilities. Bradford is the seventh largest local authority in England (population 546,400 – 2021 census), yet there are only 3 skate parks within the wider district – all of which are outdoors and would be classified as micro sized (less than 150m2). The nearest indoor facilities are an hour or more away, in Leeds and Halifax.

Added to the fact Bradford is Britain’s youngest city (29% of the population are under 20 and nearly a quarter under 16), and will become UK City of Culture in 2025, the opportunity to redress this imbalance while providing a dynamic new use for the listed leisure centre is clear.

From splash pool to skate park

The UK currently has no permanent Olympic level skate arena that combines Street and Park style courses (each providing different skating terrains and obstacles) with adequate spectator and competitor facilities. Bradford has the potential to provide all of these, housed under the iconic ‘big top’ of the former Richard Dunn Sports Centre – rebranded as ‘The Dunn’.

Our radical vision for The Dunn would adaptively reuse the spaces currently occupied by the empty leisure pool, flumes and former sports hall, by inserting a unique indoor/outdoor skating arena. This would include a 555sqm concrete ‘park style’ concrete bowl that follows the contours of the original leisure pool, and a 1,475sqm ‘street style’ arena that transitions from the indoor sports hall area to a new outdoor course.

Other areas would be repurposed with climbing walls, a café and studio suites, to create a versatile new multiuse facility within the existing building.

Leisure Centres under threat

Richard Dunn Sports Centre is one of four sites listed as a result of C20 Society’s ongoing Leisure Centres Campaign, launched 2022. The others being Doncaster Dome (Faulkner-Brown Hendy Watkinson Stonor, 1986-89), Oasis Leisure Centre in Swindon (Gillinson Barnett & Partners, 1974-75), and Bell’s Centre in Perth (David Cockburn, 1968).

Leisure centres are places of community identity and an intensely evocative part of our shared social heritage: flumes, verrucas, palm trees, the smell of chlorine, the sound of laughter – this is the backdrop to childhood experiences and families at play. Yet they are also some of the most architecturally innovative structures of the late twentieth century, combining environmentally controlled environments with soaring engineering and playful pop imagery. Is there any other building-type that is as wildly varied and downright eccentric? Space-age geodesic domes, diamond glazed pyramids, castellated forts, brutalist elephants and Moorish postmodern palaces.

The decimation of local authority budgets over the last decade has already forced many centres to close. Following the Covid pandemic, global chlorine shortages and soaring energy costs, in the words of Swim England’s chief executive, “Every pool is now at risk”. A report commissioned by the national governing body in September 2021 – prior to the current cost of energy crisis – estimated that 40% of public pools in the country (1,800+ sites) could be forced to close by 2030. If we don’t move to protect the most historically important examples now, they may soon disappear altogether.

Comments

Catherine Croft, Director of Twentieth Century Society:

“With City of Culture 2025 on the horizon, there’s a real buzz around Bradford at the moment. In the former Richard Dunn Centre you have a genuine landmark building, woven into the social and sporting heritage of the city – robust and unique, yet currently empty, unused and a target for vandalism.

 C20’s proposals for The Dunn show how, with imagination and vision, extraordinary listed buildings like this can be radically yet respectfully reinvented. If realised, they would help write an exciting new chapter for the centre, show Bradford leading the way with environmentally responsible development, and offer young people opportunity and fulfilment through sport. All while becoming a genuine world-first facility for skateboarding and urban sports, underneath that fabulous listed 1970s roof structure”.

Ian Chalk, founder Ian Chalk Architects:

“Ian Chalk Architects work at Richard Dunn, builds on the practices work on a number of significant 20th Century buildings, which have been brought back into meaningful use. Previous projects have included the Brutalist Camden Town Hall Annexe at Kings Cross, converted into the Standard Hotel and the delightful Art Deco Poplar Baths in East London, which was transformed from its ruinous state into a new and much-loved community leisure centre. We are very excited about the potential for new uses to be incorporated within the fabulous brutalist structure at Richard Dunn – and very pleased to be collaborating with the 20th Century Society to explore this”

Neil Ellis, Skateboard GB:

“Skateboarding participation in the UK is at an all-time high and with the success of the Paris 2024 Olympics, it is expected that interest will continue to grow. The Richard Dunn Centre proposal is very exciting and would become the only Olympic standard facility in the UK and the only indoor facility in the world to house an Olympic sized park and street course. This would have a huge benefit to British skateboarders looking to aim to compete on an international level, as well as providing an amazing facility for people in the local community.”

Richard Dunn (speaking in 2016):

“It is centres like these that make sportspeople. It’s a good place for kids and there could be another Richard Dunn or Jessica Ennis-Hill come through the ranks. I hope that it will be put to good use for people that need it the most.”

Credits

We’d like to thank the following organisations and individuals for their support, without which this proposal would not have been possible:

Ian Chalk Architects, Skateboard GB, Studio Hunter, Maverick Skateparks, Pier to Pier Consultancy, and Trevor Skempton.

Signed Limited Edition Print

To support C20’s ongoing Leisure Centres Campaign, we’ve produced a very special screenprint of the Richard Dunn Sports Centre in Bradford.

Based an original 1976-78 graphic illustration by architect Trevor Skempton, it depicts the pioneering ‘big top’ roof of the Sports Centre rising dramatically over the nearby Sunny Bank Road allotments, glasshouses and cricket pitch.

A strictly limited edition of 50 prints, on A4 200gsm heavyweight heritage white paper, beautifully hand signed and numbered by Trevor in 5B pencil. Safely shipped in a sturdy card-backed envelope.

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