Riga, Latvia

Category:            Mixed-Use Buildings
Year:                2026
Architects:          Around Architecture Studio 
Lead Architect:      Reinis Prēdelis 
Design Team:         Filips Pitens and Lūcija Vilcāne
Client:              Private
Photographs          Courtesy of the Architects

It all begins with the posture of a tree. Rooted, balanced & reaching.

From that idea, and from the white wagtail that gives the place its name, Cielaviņas, Latvia’s national bird, Around shaped an active-leisure and sport complex across 16 hectares of forest where the river Misa turns slowly past 35 km from Riga.

Much of the work was quieter than any building, drawing one coherent landscape that could hold two lives at once, open ground for movement and private places set apart for rest. Roughly 2 km of riverbank open to walking and 3,500 m of paths within the pine, birch and many more trees, where the surfaces change with their use.

Along the way, the ground is left ready for many lives.. open-air performances in a small amphitheater, art installations strung with light, pop-up dining, outdoor courts and quiet walking loops, each gathering marked by the same slender threshold.

At the centre stands a large sports house, 2,178 m² within and 569 m² of terrace. A single hall of 1,670 m² seating 324 beneath a gabled timber roof that lifts to 10.5 metres. Three courts for basketball, volleyball and floorball share the floor with a 227 m² gymnastics and yoga zone, while four changing rooms, twelve showers and two saunas serve the athletes above. By day, it is a playing field that shifts to suit the game; by evening, an event space turned toward a stage. Built for movement, made for rest.

The athletes are housed lightly among the pines, two cabins each sleeping forty in rooms for eight, and a more private cabin for twenty in rooms of four, raised on slender timber posts with sheltered walkways and large round windows turning each room toward the light, served by a shared washhouse and kitchen nearby.

In the area, a two-storey service building, a 180 m² workshop below, an office above, behind a long glazed wall keeps the complex running out of sight. Moreover, hidden from the public places, a private residence stands quietly on stilts above the forest floor, 156 m² of timber and glass over a 30 m² terrace, its living room and kitchen open to the canopy, the pines left growing beneath, and two cars tucked into the ground below.

Movement and stillness, kept in one landscape. Its colors, like the whole, are drawn from the site itself, forest green and earth, water and clay, the warm tone of timber. Across every scale, from the large hall to the smallest cabin, opposites are kept in one place, the current and the calm, in architecture that is quiet, personal and insightful.