Stadium Spotlight: Design Proposal — Dalian Shide, the Organic Stadium
Dalian Shide Stadium Rendering
Stadium Name: Dalian Shide Stadium
Location: Dalian Liaoning, China
Team: Dalian Shide F.C., China
Capacity: Unknown
Opening: Unknown
Cost: Unknown
Architects: NBBJ Architects (US)
Background:
Dalian Shide F.C., founded in 1983, play in the Chinese Super League, currently at 30,776 capacity Jinzhou Stadium — a stadium that was only itself built in 1997. But such is the pace of change in China that Dalian Shide will soon be playing in a new venue. UN Studio won the contest (see their “bamboo stadium” design here), but it’s worth looking at a much more innovative design entered for the stadium by NBBJ Architects out of L.A.
The Design
Touted as the “Garden Stadium”, the architects say its carbon footprint will be “minimal”. Its eco-friendliness includes water recycling, renewable energy and “green walls” — clad with living plants. NBBJ calls it an “organic stadium”, using reclaimed land folded in half around the seating bowl in the stadium, like so:
Dalian Shide Stadium -- walls folding up
The roof is perhaps the strangest part of the design. The architects say “The roof is a flexible system of cables and fabric to protect the fans from the elements, beautiful and unique, fluttering overhead,” but it’s rather unclear what elements such a flexible roof would protect fans from (it sure doesn’t look water-proof) — and might all that fluttering not be rather distracting during a game?
Dalian Shide Stadium rendering -- the roof
The walls of the stadium “contain all of the vital systems of the building: the structure for the roof, the VIP suites, the toilets and concessions stands, the mechanical spaces, and the ticket booths.” These are touted as a key part of the sustainable structure, as they “Provide building insulation, reduces energy use, reduces heat island effect, filters air pollution, reduces green house gases, softens the typical hard edge of a stadium.”
Dalian Shide Stadium rendering -- green walls
As you can see, the stadium is essentially two-sided: the architects say that opening the seating bowl to the city of Dalian “not only creates a more integrated experience for those seated in the bowl and walking on the concourses, but it also allows a connection to the site and city surrounding the stadium, allowing the local community to be a part of the event.” How that might work in practice, of course, is a different story (anyone else have visions of the stadium being trampled down by herds of hooligans at a future World Cup? No?)
Dalian Shide Stadium rendering -- from the water
Note: M below corrected the original version of this article, by noting UN Studio had now won the design contest. We had missed that important fact!
Dalian Shide stadium
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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But where are the corporate suites for CEOs of businesses that plunder the earth? Or do we have to sit amongst the common folk? Bah
@Tom – unfortunatelly it seems another design was chosen… The UNstudio architects of Amsterdam announced their design will be the one constructed. You may see it here: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=12476
As much as the new one is very nice and would be quite impressive to see, the one you presented deserves a special mention for the sole ideas. I’m not sure if they are genius or just bizarre, but surely a breath of fresh air…
@Elliott – you just made my day
M — thanks. I had actually read what now turns out to have been a misleading piece that NBBJ had won, but you are right, they did just announce UN Studio had won (don’t think your link works though). I will have to correct the piece substantially, a crazy lost opportunity!
Well, I also got confused having read news about the NBBJ design on several websites. Especially that it’s such a shocking design that everybody focused on it.As for the link – works here…
Gr8!! idea and a great blog. I appreciate your work & hope for some more informative information.
Tom:
Do you have a rough idea how many people would fit in the NBBJ-designed stadium? I’m trying to get a sense of just how massive each of these two walls would need to be…
In some of the renderings, it appears there’s only (or at least the vast majority) seating on the touch lines, but in others it looks to be a bowl with seating around the entire field.
By the way, this is a fantastic site — I just came across it this week and I’m hooked. The writing is of such a superior quality to anything I’ve seen on a football site before.
Thanks,
Brad
Brad, I’m not Tom (Tom, hope you’re not mad?), but from what I know the competition capacity set for designers was 40 thousand. There’s a whole ring of stands around the pitch in the first yier, but the second tier is only behind the touchlines, with the ends open.
Thanks for the info M.
It seems odd that they’d build a new stadium that is only a 30% capacity increase over the stadium built in 1997, but as the article said, “such is the pace of change…”. I remember Tom Friedman in one of his books (I believe it was “The World is Flat”) describing Dalian as a city that is just exploding on a yearly basis, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised!
This design, while absolutely amazing, looks more like a concept to learn from rather than something that should be executed. There are a variety of risky design concepts which could cost unknown millions to fix. In any new design element, especially one of this size, the number of risks should be kept to a minimum. Several potential problems that make me think of the Bradley IFV and Denver International Airport times 10. While elements of the design could and probably should be used elsewhere, they should used in more conservative pieces rather than all in one structure.
Cool lookin’ though!