Stadium Porn
After a week of button bashing, trying to understand why Tekla was spitting out mental wind loading values on a prison block steel frame design, the following came as welcome relief…
Fig. 1 2022 Commonwealth Games stadium artist impression
My phase 3 is with Arup and I am working out of their ‘campus’ in Solihull, Birmingham. Today the head of structures set the challenge of a concept design for the 2022 Commonwealth Games stadium. I wrongly assumed he was joking when he called everyone into a meeting room, handed out some rolls of tracing paper and declared “the architects arrive this afternoon, you have 30mins to sketch a concept for the new stadium, be prepared to present your scheme to the group and demonstrate how loads transfer to the ground”.
Fig. 2 Stadium porn
Obviously the architects are not coming until next week but it was cool to see the half dozen concepts get critiqued. We are not forecast to start developed design for a few weeks and there is still opportunity to take influence from existing stadia.
Has anyone been to a venue that impressed? The AAMI in Melbourne was used as a case study to showcase recent Arup success.
Please can you share your suggestions on here and I promise to credit you if it gets taken forward…
Fig. 3 – Google image of existing Alexander Stadium
Alexander Stadium will be redeveloped into a 40,000 seat capacity but has to incorporate the existing East Stand. Both the North and South stands will be de-scoped after the games to leave a legacy 20,000 seater.
Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium in £70m revamp for 2022 Games
Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Just build it out of bamboo, they’ll love it!
But 3 good looking stadiums;
1) Taiwan National Stadium
2) Pancho Arena, Hungary. Has a
3) Franklins Gardens, Northampton (if you’re a saints fan….)
Enjoy!
Have you googled unselected stadium designs for inspiration?
I’m quite a fan of the Kaohsiung National Stadium, Zuoying District, Taiwan. Its no.3 on https://www.sportsmanagementdegreehub.com/the-30-most-architecturally-impressive-sports-stadiums-in-the-world/
All power is self generated. A roof-less stand could allow for the temporary seating structure.
Good luck!
I agree with Glynn that the Pancho Arena is small but really interesting (https://www.archdaily.com/538826/pancho-arena-tamas-dobrosi-doparum-architects).
This is another architect’s favourite (https://www.archdaily.com/143195/braga-municipal-stadium-eduardo-souto-de-moura).
Has a concept design been chosen?