A sports park planned as public space first

What stands out in Centro Deportivo y Recreativo Abejas is that Border Arquitectos has treated open space, not buildings, as the main structure of the project. The 60,000-square-metre sports complex in Tijuana, Baja California, is designed for a fast-growing neighbourhood with limited recreational facilities, and it brings sport and everyday public life into the same continuous landscape.

Rather than splitting the site into separate fields and blocks, the scheme connects football pitches, basketball courts, running tracks, training areas and support spaces with pedestrian routes, plazas and shared meeting points. The spaces between the facilities are doing real work here too: they are planned for movement, watching, resting and informal gathering, so the whole place can serve organised sport as well as daily use.

The material language is deliberately restrained. Concrete and other durable hardscape surfaces define the main circulation and gathering areas, while sports surfaces and planting mark out different zones across the site. Architecture and landscape are kept closely tied together, with the edges and thresholds becoming part of the experience rather than leftover space.

This is a project submission published by designboom rather than a reported opening, but it is still a thoughtful piece of civic architecture to look at if you are interested in how public space can make a sports ground feel like part of the city.

Our summary of a story from designboom, published 6 October 2026. Read the original

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