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Stadium Principles

2009-01-12T22:46:00.004+07:00

Contemporary stadium construction involves a thought process far beyond thinking only about sports. With countless incentives and important limitations, there are many motives that stimulate architectural imagination. This section describes seven general principles pertaining to stadium construction. It will help you understand how to perceive a stadium from an architectural point of view.

Contents and functions

First, it is important to develop a relationship between a stadium, sport, and the expectations of the audience. In order to achieve this, several critical aspects must be well thought out and properly integrated in planning phases. These include the steel or reinforced concrete frames, tiers, galleries, staircases, roofs (whether opaque or transparent), tracks, gyms, locker rooms, press services (radio and television), conference rooms, etc. A loosely-knit structure that lacks "strength" will not stand up to today's standards and will show irreparable poverty.

Symmetry and differences

Second, the stadium is generally symmetrical with the conscious aim to repeat a similar representation of both horizontal and vertical views. That said, the architect may take some implicit risks in such harmonization by introducing subtle breaks or imbalances such as supporting pillars, walk ways, or even the choice of random coloured seats which causes an optical illusion of not being in balance. Conscious symmetry is often seen as a shelter for the fearful and the lazy, and is widely disputed by the most creative architects.

Three-dimensional perspective

Third, a stadium is an inherently large structure - one which is often difficult to determine the start from the end, simply because each of its exterior sides are mirror images of each other. A real challenge for the designer or architect is to either accentuate the similarities from side to side or conversly create "breakes" in the stadium structure in order to defeat an anachronic view.

Syntax of the stadium

Fourth, the overall desired style and look of the stadium is important to consider. Understanding each of the separate critical aspects identified in the first guideline and deciding how they will be placed together is instrumental in determining the overall style of the stadium.

Structural Expressionism

Fifth, one thinks of the range between the Soviet constructions to the captivating sketches of Erich Mendelsohn: from a rather stade historical style to exciting experimental designs. Frames, pillars, roofs, lattices, curved surfaces and above all refractions and defractions of bright rays, and well-balanced proportions of clear and shaded spaces, are all aspects that contribute to many different results.

Creative use of space

Sixth, aside from the framework and parts of the stadium that will remain constant, the center of the stadium must be considered as it will be a focal point for perfomers, employees and the audience alike. Much detail is required to make this space impressive, creative, and very much alive.

Integrating stadium, city, and landscape

Seventh, an architect should pay attention to the relationship between the stadium and its natural and urban surroundings. There may be particular aspects or concepts of the city that the stadium construction must conform to to create harmonization.

www.worldstadiums.com

Shanghai Skyscraper Named “Best Tall Building”

2009-01-12T22:42:00.000+07:00

By Anya Kaplan-Seem

The Council on Tall Buildings and the Urban Habitat has named the Shanghai World Financial Center the “Best Tall Building Overall” for 2008. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) and completed last year, the building was chosen from among four “Regional Tall Building” winners, including The New York Times Building by Renzo Piano Building Workshop with FXFOWLE, London’s 51 Lime Street by Foster and Partners, and the Bahrain World Trade Center by Atkins.

The Shanghai World Financial Center, which boasts the highest occupied floor in the world, was chosen as the winner for “its revolutionary structural design and inspirational symbolism,” according to the council. Formed out of a square prism intersected by two “cosmic arcs,” the building includes a distinctive, multi-story trapezoidal aperture at its upper floors. The firm’s design was inspired by two Chinese burial symbols: “a square prism essentially representative of the earth, and a heaven symbol—a circular disc with a circular aperture cut through it,” says Bill Pedersen, FAIA, of KPF. “We wanted to do a building that was a genuine expression of the relationship between the earth and the sky,” he explains, “and also that could be connected to the culture within which it is placed.”

The tower’s tapering form is more than an aesthetic move—it also allows the building to maximize floor plate and material efficiency. Structural innovations by the engineering firm Leslie E. Robertson Associates succeeded in increasing the building’s volume by 20 percent while retaining its original weight, thereby minimizing its total embodied energy. And the range of floor plates that the design’s unique geometry creates allowed KPF to “negotiate the different program necessities” of the building’s office, hotel, and retail components, according to Pedersen.

Though the building is replete with unusual features, Pedersen singles out one as particularly important: the tower houses a seven-story observatory and two sky walks on the 97th and 100th floors, thereby opening its most spectacular spaces and best views to the public. “One of the things we’re most proud of in this building,” says Pedersen, “is that the top 80 meters are devoted to functions that everyone can go in and enjoy.”

MUSE

2009-01-11T18:18:00.002+07:00

Muse are the greatest British rock heretics of the new century. formed in Teignmouth, Devon in 1994. It has three members; Matthew Bellamy (singer, guitarist and keyboardist), Chris Wolstenholme (bassist) and Dominic Howard (drummer and percussionist). Bellamy is the principal songwriter and creative influence in the band, although some of the band's more recent material has also been credited to Wolstenholme and Howard.

When they first cast strange and exhilarating shadows over the musical landscape at the tail end of the 90s, the cultural orthodoxy was not looking for an audacious, ambitious, heavy neo-classical metalcorepunk hyper-rock band, with a precocious, vocally soaring, 22 year old singer, apparently fallen from a distant galaxy. The times were seeking familiar, dependable sounds. Muse were neither, and yet by the time of their second album in 2001 they were playing European arena shows to 20,000 astonished onlookers, destroying extravagant amounts of equipment, filling the music press with tales of debauchery and crashing the pop charts. They must have being doing something contrarily right.