Istanbul based Tabanlioglu Architects have designed a new national stadium for Kosovo. Located in Drenas, the 30,000-seat stadium will be built 12 miles from the country's capital of Pristina and become the new home for the Kosovo national football team. Made to bring people together, the urban project aims to reflect the contemporary culture and multi-ethnic identity of Kosovo.
The national football team currently plays at the 13,000-seat Fadil-Vokrri stadium. Murat Tabanlioglu, founder of Tabanlioglu Architects, said that the project, is seen as an "urgent need in the field of football as also the national team is getting more and more successful." Kosovo's national football team has been formally recognized by the European football administrative body UEFA and international body FIFA in 2016. The new national stadium will be built to current FIFA and UEFA requirements.
The design of the Kosovo stadium will feature a series of undulating steel frames supporting a structural fabric facade. These are further supported by a concrete A frame structure. The project will be built in conjunction with shopping and entertainment buildings and two training pitches. As Tabanlioglu said, "The facade of the stadium is shielded by a flexible textile material in harmony with the natural park adjoining this large structure, thus visually splitting the large scale and mass of the stadium, so that the structure behaves as a thin curtain between the park and the sky."
