New Dalian Shide FC Stadium / UNStudio
After winning a limited competition, UNStudio will move forward with their design of a 38,500 m2 stadium for the Dalian Shide FC, China’s most successful club in the Chinese Super League. The new stadium will be located in the Shide’s hometown of Dalian, on the southern tip of Liaodong peninsula. Working with the idea of layering and overlapping, an aesthetic deeply rooted in ancient Chinese cuju football, Ben van Berkel has created a stadium where the articulation of the structure and its openings and overlapping moments serve as “the starting point for visitor experience”.
More about the stadium after the break.
According to Ben van Berkel, “The design of the Dalian Football Stadium is inspired by the classic Chinese football, which was made by layering coloured bamboo. For the stadium design we appropriated this effect to generate a double-layered roof structure. This structure operates as a double concourse enclosure, encircling the tribunes. Splits and openings in between broad bands of the lattice structure enable views from the outside in and from the inside out.”
The stadium will accomodate approximately 40,000 spectators in addition to providing areas for TV broadcasting, administration, VIP lounge, players’ facilities and two training fields. A public concourse in a layered envelope extends on ground level to provide outdoor public areas that rest above the parking facilities.
Although the primary function of the sports complex is to meet the needs of the athletes, the design does not forget the needs of the spectators. The stadium attempts to enhance spectators’ experience by considering the essential structural, programmatic, contextual, infrastructural and stylistic elements and then ultimately culminating those into “a strong, integral gesture”.
UNStudio
Ben van Berkel explained, “A key feature of the Dalian Stadium is the proximity of the spectators to the pitch, thereby ensuring the best views from the tribunes and creating a true sense of engagement. As in theatre design specific views and focal points are required. In the Dalian stadium, we envisioned the playing field as the stage. A two tier seating system and curved outlines optimize the corners of the tribunes and allow the spectators to be as close as possible to the playing field.”
All images courtesy of UNStudio.
Dalian Football Stadium, Dalian, China, 2009
Client: Dalian City Bureau of Urban Planning,
Location: Dalian, China
Building surface: 38,500 m2
Building site: 144,000 m2
Capacity: 40,000 spectators
Programme: Football stadium with two additional training grounds
Status: Competition 1st prize
Credits
UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Astrid Piber with Nuno Almeida, Ger Gijzen and
Cynthia Markhoff, Luis Etchegorry, Shu Yan Chan, Ramon van der Heijden, Marcin Koltunski,
Fernie Lai, Patrik Noome
Advisors
Engineering consultants: ARUP Shanghai, China
Arup International Consultants (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
Sports consultant: ASS Planungs GMBH Freie Architekten, Germany
Traffic consultant: MVA Hong Kong LTD.
Visualisations: UNStudio / and SZ Silkroad Digi Tech Co. LTD., China
Animation: IDF Global Pty Ltd.
AAAAMAAAAZIIIING!!!
them architects are like, soo awesome and stuff!
The section is really typical of stadiums… And sorry but the design itself had nothing sexy or exceptional… Very formal.
I think architecture is all about formal while fulfilling or surpassing the necessary functional, spatial requirements of a program. But most architects try to explain less about their formal intention and try to depict their projects in a “nobler” way such as sustainability or whatever they could make up.
I think it is time for us to accept that we do crave for form and try to fluidly mingle it with function.
I believe BirdNest stadium or WaterCube or Seattle Public Library or the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is formal. But they are very successful ones in integrating with their functions. Although the pleasing ability of forms significantly depends on the personal taste of a viewer, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with being formal in architecture.
I think we are just being afraid of disgracing Architecture unintentionally if we say Architecture is all about Form and Functions.
being formal is not having a form, of course architecture always have a form, but if you cannot see the difference between the Nelson-Atkins museum or the bird nest and this thing where the stripes have no goal and the concept of the building is as deep as “overlapping and layering”, I’m sorry I can’t help you. Architecture is form related to context, spatial experience, structure, functions or other intentions.
@ Scud Shop: there is nothing to do with reinventing the wheel or not… That sentence doesn’t mean much neither, or could also be applied to real estate housing…
@Archilocus, right below me, (I don’t know why Archdaily do not leave a “reply” link after third response.)
“overlapping and layering” is an idea as well as “mimicking a bird nest” is. Are you saying that “overlapping and layering” is not as “deep” as “mimicking a bird nest?”
“Responding to Context” is also an architectural idea that sometimes helps to generate form. But every project does not need to respond to a “context.” Birdnest does not respond to its context although one might say not having a context is a context, where as Nelson Atkins Art Museum is highly responsive to its context, which are the uphill slope, the sculpture park and the existing giant stone museum building. (The concept of Steven Holl is “stone” and “feather.”) If we leave the aesthetic part, both the birdnest frame and this overlapping frame are just support structures. So I don’t see any “difference” that you are suggesting except for the visual experiences.
This overlapping strips have its own advantage of spatial experience. If you look at the photo of the white physical models, you can see one can experience being inside and then being outside again as he/she walks along the stadium’s second level on the exterior side. Also the interior view of the overhung roof is aesthetically pleasing, I think.
I don’t like this stadium as much as the way I like the Birdnest. But I would say this is just a personal taste. And I believe this project has its own value and merit. They are not just being formal as you are suggesting.
@Ala: You’re quoting me partially, which is not intellectually honest, i said related to context, spatial experience, structure, functions OR other intentions.
I don’t think the goal of HdeM was to mime a bird nest, but if you want my opinion is to make aesthetic pattern out of the structure.
What are the stripes for? To provide uneven sun shading? They are not only useless, but opposite to the most simple logic.
And I don’t think I’m the only one thinking this is formal looking at the comments… Come on! The access roads following the same pattern as the stripes, this is not pure formal design ? I agree with the experience of “slaloming” in between the stripes to enter, but why would you bother doing that if you have holes in the stripes large enough to put an highway? Sorry if I sound harsh, but if you want to compare to something, this is not a bird nest, it is a sink covered with toilet paper.
I think un studio is also trying to “make aesthetic pattern out of structure” like you are suggesting of HdM’s intention on the Birdnest.
These stripes have functional properties; “spatial experience, structure, aesthetic (may be good or bad), other intentions (shading).” I don’t know why you keep saying they are useless. Also the holes in these bands bring light into the interior spaces.
Anyway, I think we should leave that here. Have a nice day.
wow, I didnt think UNStudio were capable- but there you go- Proves no matter how many great jobs you have done in the past you can still mess things up. Its horrible…
china, where else :)
Wow… this is a really disappointing effort from UN Studio. That structure seems very juvenile… almost a Bird’s Nest copy… and a sloppy one at that
The unbalanced bowl geometry is also rather strange and isn’t going to help in terms of bringing as many spectators as possible close to the action…which is stated as a main concept. What is the purpose of this move?
Why didn’t the jury pick this one? It seems like a much more innovative approach to stadium design in comparison…
http://www.archdaily.com/35207/dalian-shide-stadium-nbbj/
NMiller, I don’t think that you’re right about that comment with the similarity of those project. And I don’t see that.
Please iluminate me.
Why does everyone think we have to re-invent the wheel with every project…I like the form and think it is appropriate for the climate…
archilocus, go back and read…
“The stadium attempts to enhance spectators’ experience by considering the essential structural, programmatic, contextual, infrastructural and stylistic elements and then ultimately culminating those into “a strong, integral gesture”.
But hey you know all about their intent by 6 pictures. “Architecture is form related to context, spatial experience, structure, functions or other intentions.” How do you justify that this form does not meet any of those intents!
how is this apllied to real estate housing? Come on…
no need to justify… history will be the only judge. We’ll remember about the bird nest, about this, I doubt…
It is not enough to put words, also should it be clear in the design, and though this is really personal, I hardly see the real connection between UNstudio words and their design. Attempt, yes, but succeed?
About the expression “no need reinventing the wheel”, I simply meant that it could also justified to build 1.000 times the exact same house, because no need to reinvent housing too, right? With that thinking we might be living in huts still. The fact there is no need to reinvent, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think. I think this is a rather generic expression that can be used almost everywhere, and to say almost everything or its contrary. End of the parenthesis.
The bird’s nest, the Allianz arena, Toyo Ito’s Kaohsiung stadium have something more than the ordinary stadium, integrating in a different way pattern, material and structure; for Ito even, opening the stadium somehow… As NMiller pointed out, even NBJJ’s proposal for this stadium was something a bit different about typology…
Don’t get me wrong, this is not so terrible, it’s just another stadium…
Well stated…
I have to say the front view is quite pleasant, perhaps my problem is mainly with the rendering… I would say because of the extra translucency and depth feeling?
JUST NET!!!!!
I wouldn’t be happy if I was the dude who’ll have to pay for the seat on the perspective
“people only criticize they never create”
Jan Kaplický
Perfect example that being a good architect doesn’t necessarily turn you into a good philosopher… People should generally avoid statements starting with “People…”.
I don’t see the problem with critique generally. To be honest, if I had a project featured on Archdaily, I would be more anxious to have few comments only rather than a lot, even negative.
“People should generally avoid statements starting with “People…”.”
Archilocus. Oct 21st 2009.
;)
Oh.. and seen as I live in Dalian I should probably add my two pence worth.
There is already a 30 or 40,000 seater stadium in Dalian, previously used by the football team. As the teams fortunes declined they moved out of the stadium into a smaller one (fickle fans!). So a) I’m not entirely sure this is even necessary and b) The stadium is currently the centre of a lot of retail activity on it’s outskirts, even though the stadium itself isn’t heavily used. I fail to see how adding a new but ultimately very similar stadium (in that they are both fairly standard ‘stadium’ designs rather than out of the ordinary designs such as Bird’s Nest or the other, much more exciting (but flawed) competition entry) will improve/change the current stadium situation in Dalian.
actually I don’t expect to see it in the next ten years in Dalian, bcs ,u see, how can we get the money to built it?
btw, Mengmeng don’t know much about football, we all pretty sure about that!
Currently working on some stadium projects, I found this has a beautiful forme but I don’t know how the structure work. it seem to be so complicated (even more complicated than bejing’s) in term of elements.
In term of function, I don’t know if they mix the VIP area with public area? (see in section)
@FLW brings a valid point to the table with his quoted text: “people only criticize they never create”. It’s easy to play the monday-morning quarterback (in American football, haha) and dissect every nuance of the architectural scheme. That being said, however, it’s hard to judge a project on the information provided. On first glance, it does seem oddly similar to the Bird’s Nest by HdeM, but that may be a result of the “sexification” of the scheme that seems to be necessary for winning design competitions. I have a hard time seeing the cultural or architectural relevance of modeling the stadium after the Chinese football, but the sad reality is that contemporary architects feel compelled to rely on this type of rhetoric to justify design decisions. The stadium is definitely not UN Studio’s best work, but their previous work and international reputation might suggest that there may be more beneath the surface of this work. Hopefully we get to learn more about the project soon…
nice stadium
but i have a note about what the architect said that the stadium feature is to make the supporter more closer to the pitch .. sorry i didn’t find something like that .. because the distance between the supporters and the pitch is like any stadium
even in England stadiums the supporter are more close to the pitch .. !!
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