LongSpan Kaosiung Stadium

Advanced Construction Services And Materials

Case Study Long-Span Structures

KAOSIUNG STADIUM Sinhgad College Of Architecture Mishal Shah IVth Yr. B.Arch. (I.D.)

THE MAIN STADIUM FOR THE WORLD GAMES 2009 IN KAOHSIUNG LOCATION: No.500, Junxiao Rd., Zuoying Dist., Kaohsiung City 813, Taiwan (R.O.C.) MAIN USE: Stadium, Park SITE AREA: 189,012.00m2 BUILDING FLOOR AREA: 25,553.46 m2 TOTAL FLOOR AREA: 98,759.31 m2 ITO Toyo * * Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects MIKI Shigeto ** ** TAKENAKA CORPORATION LIU Ricky *** *** Ricky Liu & Associates Architects + Planners Architect : ITO ・ TAKENAKA ・ RLA Kaohsiung Main Stadium for 2009 World Games Design Team Consortium manager & Construction: Fu Tsu Construction Co. Ltd. STADIUM FOR THE NEW CENTURY The World Games is one of the biggest International sports events being held every four years this mainly includes non-Olympic sports. In 2005, Kaohsiung City Government held an international competition for the main stadium of the World Games 2009 in Taiwan. Their proposal had got through the competition, and the stadium was completed in 2009 as one of the leading national architectural projects in the country. Sending information from Taiwan to the world was the long time dream of Taiwanese people, and dreams come true by construction of the stadium. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan of which aim is to be an “Ecological City”. In Japan, CASBEE has been introduced and adopted since 2002 as one of the ecological standards. Ahead of it, Taiwan had already introduced Green-Building Standard to which public buildings of over 50 million NT$ construction costs are to entry. And the stadium had been awarded with the gold class grade of the standard.

They proposed the following three concepts in the competition of 2005. 1) Urban Park The landscape was combined with the facilities and the urban park has been formed as a whole. 2) Open Stadium The flared opening of the stadium is stretched out south, to Kaohsiung citizen, to the world. 3) Spiral Continuum The structure of the roof represents the dynamism of the event. URBAN PARK One of the features of the stadium is composition of the section. Excess soil which was excavated during construction at the base and the field had been piled up and levelled around the stadium building, and put the main various rooms and parking lots in an underground floor. This composition allows the ground level to be used mostly for green plants and human, and gives the stadium more human scale while it is huge facilities accommodating 40,000 people. OPEN STADIUM While traditional stadium are co-centric circles with closed space for sports games, this stadium adopts the scarce channeled space, opening to the southern main entrance and attracting visitors from south-east MRT station. Open Stadium is not only opening for visitors but for the environment. We control the natural cool wind for stand-seats, and calm breeze for Field. And also use the rainwater for irrigation. The hospitable image of the stadium interacts with the outer environment with its open and friendly space. SPIRAL CONTINUUM The Oscillating Hoops spiral composed of 4,625 spiral steel pipes are the sub-structure of the roof. These pipes are 318.55mm in diameter, climbing up to the whole stadium roof. And on these pipes, there are over 8,800 photovoltaic generation panels. The system generates 1.1 million units of power annually. Compared with thermal power, the stadium lowers 660 tons of CO2 annually, which equals to the ecoefficiency produced by planting 33-acre forest. The smooth 3D curved elements of the stadium form the entity of space and structure, presenting the unique dynamics of the design vividly. And the flexibility to architectural shape of the system has been proven with this stadium. FOR THE FUTURE In the point of view of the relation between facility and global environment, it is important to think about the sustainability of the facility. This stadium has achieved these three concepts, and became almost like a large-tree creating energy from the sunlight, offering comfortable shade and the wind for the audiences. These performances are continued together with green of the surrounding urban park for the future. After the 2009 world games successfully, the stadium has roles as the national landmark representing Taiwan. The open-stadium is expected to send information from Taiwan to all over the world. And at the same time the facility is a property to the future opened for the global environment. The Solar-panels of the roof

Taiwan and it was built to coincide with the opening of the World Games, that was held this July. The “World Games Stadium” holds 55,000 spectators and it cost $150 million to build. The stadium will hold the record for largest solar-powered stadium in the world with it’s 14,155m2 roof. It could potentially generate 1.14 gigawatt hours of electricity every year, enough to power up to 80% of the surrounding neighbourhood. The stadium’s roof is covered by 8,844 solar panels. The stadium is located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and it was built to coincide with the opening of the World Games, to be held this July. Designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the stadium incorporates 8,844 solar panels on the roof. The roof will generate enough energy to power the building’s 3,300 lights and two giant television screens. On hot days, the stadium will generate more power than it needs, so the Taiwanese government plans to sell the excess capacity. A Taiwanese official said that the panels will generate 1.14 million KWh per year, preventing 660 tons of annual carbon dioxide. The power system was tested in January. It took over six minutes to power up the lighting in the stadium, which illuminates the track and field with 3300 lux. The stadium has a some other green features — permeable pavement is used throughout the complex, and all the raw materials used in the main stadium are reusable and made in Taiwan. Yet for those who have been privileged enough to see Mr. Ito’s creation, the experience is just as intoxicating. Clad in a band of interwoven white pipes, the structure resembles a python just beginning to coil around its prey, its tail tapering off to frame one side of an entry plaza. Unlike the Bird’s Nest it unfolds slowly to the visitor and is as much about connecting — physically and metaphorically — with the public spaces around it as it is about the intensity of a self-contained event. The stadium, with more than 40,000 seats, is surrounded by a vast new public park, its grounds sprinkled with palm trees and tropical plants. Most of the trees are young, but in a few years, when they are fully grown, they should create the impression that the structure is being swallowed by a dense tropical forest. In essence the coiled form becomes a tool for weaving together opposing energies: the concentrated intensity of the stadium on the one hand, the plaza’s chaotic social exchanges on the other, the unruly forest all around. What brings the design to life is that Mr. Ito is able to convey this experience physically, not just visually. He is not the first architect to experiment with degrees of openness and enclosure in a stadium. Herzog & de Meuron’s 2005 Munich soccer stadium, which looks like a gigantic padded inner tube, is almost suffocating in its sense of compression. Eduardo Souto de Moura’s 2004 stadium in Braga, Portugal, is a masterly expression of extremes: embedded in a quarry at one end, its rectangular form opens onto a bucolic view of rolling hills on the other. Like many who came to prominence in the past decade or so, these architects have sought to create structures that explore the psychological extremes that late Modernism and postmodernism ignored. Their aim was to expand architecture’s emotional possibilities and, in doing so, to make room for a wider range of human experience. The stadium has a some other green features — permeable pavement is used throughout the complex, and all the raw materials used in the main stadium are reusable and made in Taiwan. It will also be good to know how much the whole solar panel installation cost. Remember, the real issue with solar energy is the high capital cost (with some solar power plants quoted at over $2.5 million / MW). Also, what sort of solar panels are these – thin film or the usual? I visited the stadium site, couldn’t find much else other than what’s given here. Also, it states “A Taiwanese official said that the panels will generate 1.14 million KWh per year, preventing 660 tons of annual carbon dioxide.” I think a coal fired power plant generates about 1 T of CO2 per MWh, which means at 1140 MWh, it should be preventing about 1100 CO2…anyway, half of that is still good, so let me not complain!