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The Shuttle: Archohm Designs a Badminton Academy Shaped Like a Shuttlecock in Bhubaneswar
- Style Essentials Edit Team
- 17 hours ago
- 3 min read
In Bhubaneswar, architecture studio Archohm has completed The Shuttle, a badminton academy situated near the renowned Kalinga Stadium whose built form is a direct and deliberate visual reference to the sport it houses. The building's deep amber-orange bowl-shaped envelope, which can be seen from a significant distance above the surrounding treeline, draws its formal inspiration from the cork base of a shuttlecock. The reference is not subtle, and it is not meant to be.
The project was conceived as an architectural statement that places Odisha firmly on the international badminton map while celebrating the state's deep and sustained commitment to developing the sport at both the national and international levels.
The exterior is clad in a textured golden-orange surface that reads as a single continuous curved form when viewed from a distance, the bowl widening as it rises before meeting a glazed band at the roofline. A row of light fixtures runs along the top perimeter of the bowl, and when activated at night, these cast dramatic rays of white light upward into the sky in a radiating pattern that directly evokes the feathered skirt of a shuttlecock.
The transformation between the building's daytime and nighttime appearance is striking and entirely intentional: by day it is a bold, warm-toned volume rising above the greenery of the surrounding landscape; after dark it becomes a luminous urban landmark with the light installation completing the shuttlecock metaphor in full. At ground level, the bowl lifts to reveal a double-height glazed facade with dark metal framing, transparent and publicly accessible, housing a cafe and a sports retail outlet that connect the academy to the broader urban fabric around it.
The central program of the building is a vast open hall housing eight badminton courts, elevated to the third floor within the bowl form. The images make the scale and ambition of this space immediately clear: the courts are tournament-standard, finished in Yonex green with timber separation strips running between them, flanked by stepped spectator seating on either side and large-format LED display screens mounted on the end walls.
The ceiling is a black-painted exposed structure with parallel rows of linear LED lighting running across the full width of the hall, and the walls are finished entirely in the same deep green as the court surfaces, giving the space a total visual immersion in the color of the game. Archohm describes this central hall as a black box, a controlled environment where airflow, lighting, and humidity are precisely managed to competition standards.
The supporting facilities of the academy are arranged within the base of the bowl form alongside and below the main hall, each receiving filtered natural light through strategically placed skylights. The section of the building is organized so that the heavy, opaque mass of the courts sits elevated within the bowl, while the ground level opens outward through the glazed facade and connects the building to its public setting.
Above the court level, the rooftop has been developed as an expansive public viewing platform from which panoramic views extend across Bhubaneswar's cityscape. The studio describes this outdoor space as larger in area than a football field, and a shaded walkway connects visitors across it and links to the broader urban landscape beyond. At the perimeter of the rooftop, the glazed band that separates the bowl from the viewing deck is visible in the dusk photographs, the interior light of the building glowing through it and reinforcing the continuity between the lit exterior and the active spaces within.
A smaller sculptural shuttlecock installation is visible at ground level in the surrounding landscape, a secondary reference point that anchors the building's identity within its immediate context near the Kalinga Stadium.
The shuttle operates on two registers simultaneously. As a sports facility, it meets the technical requirements of high-performance training and competition. As a piece of urban architecture, it communicates its purpose and its civic ambition from a distance, making itself legible to the city around it through form, color, and light in equal measure.
Fact File
Project Name: The Shuttle
Location: Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
Typology: Sports Academy
Architects: Archohm
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