The aim of this paper is to present some tools and methodological proposal to investigate sports facilities applied to a case-study: the Catalan region.

The research does not  focus on facilities specialized for the competitions, but it deals with multifunctional  facilities facing with the urban scale, related with the context in which are  located and with a high level of attractiveness. 

The study of the Catalan contex pointed out some crucial issues (functional integration, insertion in a consolidated context, construction by section, relationship between typological experimentation and type unit, etc.) througout it is possible to set-up a comparative analysis between this context and others. The comparative analysis aims to investigate and clarify the relationship between invariants and variables: characters of permanence and innovation of  design compared with restrictions given by technical requirements of sports  spaces.