STADIUM DESIGN
Shaping the world’s stadiums
Arup’s global sports business leader, Jim Burridge, shares the latest thinking influencing the sporting venues of today and tomorrow
The London Olympics and Euro 2012, together with Wimbledon and a busy schedule of international cricket, promise an exciting summer of sport for fans, and the expected economic benefits for the country are considerable.
H
owever, the investment required to host and run major sporting
competitions; for designing, building and maintaining venues as well as the cost of tickets to fans mean that there is a greater expectation for these events to deliver a tangible economic, social and cultural impact and for venues to provide a long term legacy for the country, local communities and visitors. Attracting more visitors,
enhancing the value of the live experience for fans and gaining more insight into how the public perceive and interact with these venues is key for architects, designers and venue owners. It can help drive revenues in terms of ticket sales – from the face value of a ticket through to the wider commercial gains from retail, merchandising, sponsorship and advertising. Importantly it can also enhance the wider social and cultural impact of sporting events and arenas. Arup was founded on a
commitment to delivering a positive social impact and we felt it was critical to understand the factors influencing the public’s experiences of these venues – what do they like?
What can be improved? And what are the innovations they’d like to see in the future? So, we commissioned a survey of 2,000 UK sports and entertainment fans to help explore these views. The research has found that
whilst the public fall in love with venues with heritage, such as Wembley Stadium, Lords Cricket Ground and Madison Square Gardens; improved ergonomics and usability really shape the live experience and overall perception and popularity of venues. Fans cited a number of areas affecting their experience, including movement around and access to venues, the technology within a stadium, as well as seating and sightlines. In addition, venue owners are also looking at the science and engineering behind acoustics and crowd modelling, as well as the potential need for stadia to be multi-purpose. These factors need to be considered when building future stadia and we explore these in more detail below.
SIGHTLINES, SPACE AND SEATING As you’d expect, sightlines, space and seating at sports and entertainment venues featured strongly in the survey. Nearly half of the fans surveyed (49 percent) want more comfortable, spacious seating and 27 percent would like safe standing room at venues. At the same time, a quarter felt that a poor view of the action had the most negative impact on their experience of venues.
Ensuring as many visitors as
possible can attend events, without compromising the live experience or health and safety guidelines, requires a careful balance. A number of venues are now applying geometry to achieve this. For example, the Allianz Arena in Munich adopted an innovative ‘bowl’ design which allows more fans to feel closer to the action and enjoy an excellent view of the match whilst catering for up to 66,000 spectators.
CROWD MODELLING Getting to and from sports and entertainment venues and the ease-of-movement inside these locations is also a huge priority for fans. Poor transport to and from the venue was cited by 32 percent of respondents as having the most negative impact on their perception of a venue and when asked about the improvements they’d like to see at stadia and arenas, 32 percent asked for better crowd modelling of how people move around inside the building. Taking transport and crowd
modelling into account at the early stages, particularly for major sports events such as the Olympics, can be an important factor in the bidding process. Tools such as MassMotion, developed by Oasys, can predict the movement of tens of thousands of individual personalities in a complex 3D environment within a few hours. This technology was used at AAMI Park, sited within Melbourne’s Sports and
ArchitectNews.co.uk | Architects Choice | 27
Image: Andrew Hazard
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