I have been looking at what architects have been doing to make stadiums more sustainable. Whilst looking at this area of sustainability and sporting architecture I came across a winning proposal for a multi-sports complex in France.
The thing that caught my eye with these proposal was that it wasn't just about the sporting complex itself but the area immediately surrounding the complex was equally as important. It became about urban design as well as the design of the building. Urban design is something that I feel is equally as important and will potentially be an area that I will research further.
"New urban ambition for the neighbourhood"
The design for a sports complex in Antony France was designed I feel to be a central hub of the city that why it was not only sports facilities that was wanted. The proposal includes space for gathering, meeting sports activities and events.
Since starting my blog I have come across a number of things that have interested me. Before now I have been looking at sustainable sports stadium, as sports and architecture are two passion in my life. Along the way I been looking at sustainable sports stadiums around the world but have also come across the urban designs based around these stadiums so I started to look deeper into the urban design side of things but still around sporting facilities.
I recently came across a proposal for the Lansdowne Park in Ottawa Canada on the website "archdaily". The project has long been in the pipeline and was triggered when one side of the stadium was found to be unstable. This gave the opportunity to not just redevelop the stadium but to redevelop the surrounding area as well.
Archdaily showed the proposal from Cannon Design. I decided to look deeper and found what I believe to be the winning proposal by an landscape architect called Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg.The design was not just about the stadium but everything around the stadium as well, this is what interested me the urban design side and I think this is something that I might want to look into more.
The proposed complex has a large new park, redeveloped stadium, civic centre, and a new village with shop service and residential space
Before
After
I think this sort of project shows how important sports facilities and the surrounding area can be to a community. Its not just about the stadium but using that as a base for redeveloping the area around it so that the area has new life and is not just used once or twice a week by the sports team.
This is Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg vision statement.
"Lansdowne Park has held a complex relationship to the city of Ottawa. Its grand scale and
civic focus has given it regional and national status, marked by sporadic and intense
exhibition and sporting events. Its cultural and ceremonial importance is reinforced by
physical linkages to Parliament Hill, Dow’s Lake, the Central Experimental Farm and other
major institutional sites via the Rideau Canal and the NCC Parkway. It functions
simultaneously as a much loved neighbourhood park accommodating everyday recreational
program for nearby residents. Currently, these functions occur in an uncoordinated and
disconnected fashion, involving separate areas of the park.
Lansdowne Park is at a pivotal point in its evolution. When it was functioning as a more integrated site, hosting events of national prestige and showcasing the best of Canadian skill and ingenuity, the park had a much more significant civic and national identity. The fragmentation and dissolution of the site keeps undermining that embedded value. The plan proposed by OSEG needs to be sensitively and imaginatively integrated within the overall park scheme to avoid dissipating the Park’s already lagging identity and expression as both grand civic destination and intimate neighbourhood amenity. The parkland component needs to maximize its visibility, identity and connectivity in multiple ways. Otherwise it will be perceived as leftover, inaccessible space incidental to a commercial development. Win Place Show reinstates Lansdowne Park as a single, rich, multilayered node in the mental map of the city and the region. It makes it more accessible, more visible and more diversified."
Over the recent weeks I have been developing my research and expanding it into different areas from the one I started with. In the weeks gone I had been looking at sustainable stadium but my focus has now moved more to the urban design involved around sporting stadiums.
I been looking at different complexes around the world and I am coming across more and more projects where its not just a sports stadium but its a complex as a whole, a park.
I came across the Sports Park Stozice in Ljubljana, Slovenia. This project is from 2010 and is exactly the sort of thing that has started to take my interest over recent weeks. The park includes a sports stadium, sports hall, large shopping centre and recreational park landscape. The 187500 m2 park has become the centre of Ljubljana's urban life due to its variety of activities that it has.
There is a 16000 seater football stadium that is half submerged under the park with only the roof coming out, a multi-purpose sport hall that can hold 12000 spectators as well as the shopping centre which is the smallest of the three.
One of the key things that was mentioned in the fact that the shopping centre generate activity around the park even when the stadiums aren't being used. This I feel is something that is important. If it was just the stadium that was developed I believe that there would be a slight sense that it is a waste of money as it would only be used a couple of times a week. But by creating a new complex a buzz is created around the city and not only are new sports facilities provide which I feel very important but other facilities are provided as well as recreational green space.
After looking at the temporary stadium in Vancouver the other day I was immediately reminded of the some initial plans that where made for the Olympic stadium after the Olympics was completed. It was proposed that the stadium would potentially have 55000 of its seats dismantled and be used in Chicago who at the time were one of the favourites to host the next games.
This was an understandable approach considering what has happened to the the Bird's Nest stadium in China. The stadium since the Olympics has rarely been used and has caused much controversy as to what to do with it.
This has got me thinking about how you can develop sporting facilities where this problem will not occur again.
I play football regularly and train on 3G pitches also know as rubber crumb or artificial pitches. When I was looking at sustainable architecture I came across this little article which I found interesting for two reason. The artificial pitches use rubber like bits hence the name rubber crumb, Vancouver's Empire Field stadium has used recycled tires for there rubber crumb 346000 pounds of it.
Further reading down the page I noticed that the article said that the stadium had the shortest construction time in north american history for a stadium more than 25000 seats. This was due to the fact that the stadium was a temporary stadium while other facilities were renovated.
The idea of have temporary seating or even sporting facilities that can be dismantled and moved is something that I find very intriguing and is something that I will look into.
Saw the Ricoh Arena on a TV programme and was intrigued by the building. The building is the home for Coventry football team but that is not all the building holds. As well as the 32000 seater stadium there is also exhibition space, conference centre, health and fitness club and a 75 bedroom hotel.
From the simple inspiration of petals on a flower to the unique design create. Amazing how things seen and passed by in everyday life can inspire such an amazing and creative design.
