To build a new sports centre in Oakland’s Ira Jinkins Park and make fitness and recreation accessible to the low-income Brookfield neighbourhood has been the city’s dream for more than 20 years. After San Francisco’s 2012 Olympics bid failed in 2002 and dashed plans to build an Olympic training centre on the site, the city collaborated with ELS Architecture and Urban Design to make the project feasible anyway, refining the programme, seeking new funding sources, and breaking the project into two phases to build the core components first.