New York-based firm M Castedo Architects have unveiled their designs for the "Silver Pearl Hotel", a 1000-room luxury resort and conference facility for the Qatar 2022 World Cup located 1.5 kilometers off the Doha coastline. The $1.6 billion design consists of two 30-story semicircular towers connected by a full height, transparent climate controlled atrium, with unimpeded views of the sea beyond. Access to the hotel will be provided by a four lane elevated causeway over the sea - or alternatively by private yacht or helicopter, say the architects.
A new, 40,000-seat stadium has been unveiled in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Planned for Qatar’s Education City, the home of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), the “Qatar Foundation Stadium” is the fourth stadium design that has been released by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).
The structure is intended to reference Islamic architecture. Both the interior and exterior will be clad in translucent triangular panels whose color and patterns will shift throughout the day, depending on the position of the sun and influence of artificial illumination which will reflect the events happening from within the stadium.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy has released images of the third 2022 World Cup Stadium planned for Qatar. Revamping an existing 40-year-old stadium at Gulf Cup in Riyadh, the Khalifa International Stadium will be expanded to accommodate 40,000 spectators and equipped with an “innovative cooling technology” that will allow players to compete at a comfortable 26 degrees Celsius.
Zaha Hadid Architects' design for al-Wakrah stadium, the main stadium for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Image Courtesy of ZHA
Zaha Hadid’s unfortunate comments in response to worker deaths on construction sites for the 2022 World Cup has made Qatar the eye of a storm that has been raging globally for decades. But it’s not just about Qatar. This has been an issue for as long as there have been construction sites and for as long as poor people have swarmed to them for a chance at a better life.
Construction booms and migrant construction workers have always been two sides of the same equation, both dependent on the other, and, by the twisted logic of the global economy, both are the reason for the other’s existence. No migrant labor pool = no global city = no fantastic architecture, or something to this effect.
The migrant workers are the silent collaborators in global architecture, the invisible, faceless, “untouchables” who make the cost-effective construction of these buildings possible.
Zaha Hadid set off a mini-shitstorm [the other day] when she declared that architects have “nothing to do with the workers” who have died on construction sites in Qatar, site of the World Cup in 2022. The Guardian had reported that nearly 900 workers had died in the past two years building the infrastructure required for the massive event. One of the projects under construction is Hadid’s Al-Wakrah stadium (above), a swoopy, curvilinear 40,000 seat facility that some critics likened to a vagina when the scheme was unveiled to the public. “It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it,” Hadid said, on the worker deaths. “I cannot do anything about it because I have no power to do anything about it. I think it’s a problem anywhere in the world. But, as I said, I think there are discrepancies all over the world.”
Her tone-deaf comments elicited a firestorm of predictable outrage, but I’d contend they had a near-truth about them. As I see it, Hadid had four possible courses of action, all of them limited in scope.
"I have nothing to do with the workers. I think that's an issue the government – if there's a problem – should pick up. Hopefully, these things will be resolved."
After the controversial lampooning of Zaha Hadid's Al Wakrah Stadium in Qatar, Anthony Flint of the Atlantic Cities casts a critical eye over how the internet, and the swarms of would-be architecture critics that reside there, have changed the way that buildings are designed. Tracking the trend for this form of criticism from Le Corbusier's "two pianos having sex" (aka the Carpenter Centre at Harvard) to the hyper-reactive culture of modern online criticism today, he looks at how architects - and PR companies - are responding. You can read the full article here.
New details have emerged on Zaha Hadid Architects and AECOM’s 2022 FIFA World Cup stadium in Qatar. Scheduled to begin construction in late 2014, the 40,000-seat venue pulls inspiration from a local fishing boat - the Arabian dhow - to influence its overall design.
In response to the mounting criticism of Qatar's ability to host the 2022 World Cup, the "tiny Gulf Arab state" is considering developing floating hotels, luxury villas and a water park off the coast of Doha called Oryx Island to house the influx of visitors that will need accommodation during the games. The island would be developed by Barwa Real Estate Co, a firm partly owned by the government, at a cost of $5.5 million. Finish architecture firm, Global Accommodation Management (GAM) to design the various facilities which includes projects for a hotel and luxury villas that could house up to 25,000 people.
After winning an international competition, OMA has been commissioned to masterplan a new 10km2 Airport City for a population of 200,000, linking the new Hamad International Airport with the city of Doha, Qatar. OMA’s masterplan is a series of four circular districts along a spine parallel to the HIA runways, intended to create a strong visual identity and districts with unique identities. Phase One of the 30-year masterplan, which links airside and landside developments for business, logistics, retail, hotels, and residences, will be mostly complete in time for the 2022 World Cup, hosted by Qatar.
Rem Koolhaas commented: “We are delighted and honored to participate in the exciting growth of Doha, in a project that is perhaps the first serious effort anywhere in the world to interface between an international airport and the city it serves.”
Wilmotte & Associés recently won the competition to design the 2018 FIFA World Cup Stadium in Kaliningra, Russia. Their design features an urban facade that wraps the stadium, consisting of a series of orthogonal screens that respond to the surrounding urban context. The project will be constructed from a primary steel structure, but the upper tier of the stadium will be temporary. The stadium has been designed so that after the tournament completes in 2018, the stands can be dismantled and the upper canopy can be removed. Construction of the 45,000 seat football stadium will begin in 2014. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Yesterday, FIFA announced the nations that will host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup™. Russia will be hosting the most important soccer event in the world in 2018 and Qatar will do so four years later. We’ve already featured Erick van Egeraat & Mikhail Posokhin’s VTB Arena for Russia. Now, we want to share with you this video showing five stadiums for Qatar 2022. Enjoy it!
The 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa is less than one year away. Being perhaps the most important international competition in sports in the world, we would like to start featuring some of the stadiums that will host this magnificient competition.
Soccer City Stadium is located in Johannesburg and it was originally built in 1987. Among other important events, it hosted the first massive speech from Nelson Mandela after his liberation in 1990. However, it was completely renewed for the upcoming World Cup, becoming the stadium where the starting and the final game will be played.
Designed by Boogertman Urban Edge and Partners in partnership with Populous, it will allow for 94,000 spectators to enjoy the best soccer in the world. The design of the stadium was selected from a series of concept designs ranging from acknowledgement of Johannesburg’s disappearing mine dumps; the kgotla (defined by the tree) of the African city state; the African map as a horizontal representation, which included the roof as a desert plane supported on tropical trees set within the mineral wealth of Southern Africa; to a representation of the protea, South Africa’s national flower.
The calabash, or African pot, was selected as being the most recognizable object to represent what would automatically be associated with the African continent and not any other. The calabash, or ‘melting pot of African cultures’, sits on a raised podium, on top of which is located a ‘pit of fire’. Thus the pot sits in a depression, which is the ‘pit of fire’, as if it were being naturally fired.
Although the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is a little bit less than a year away, in Brazil they already started to prepare for the 2014 World Cup. Brazil has won more World Cups than any other country in the world, so they want to make sure their stadiums are as spectacular as their soccer team.
The 12 cities that will host the World Cup are Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Brasília, Cuiabá, Manaus, Fortaleza, Salvador, Recife and Natal. You can see 6 great stadiums after the break.
Thanks to our reader Luis for sending us this info!
.jpg?1417710383 "Courtesy of SC")
