Project Overview

Zaozhuang Stadium is located at center of Cultural and Sports Park in new city zone. The stadium is a Class A stadium with the capacity of around 40,000 spectators, which also contains commercial and office facilities. It is able to hold national and individual international competitions and citizen activities.
According to the image positioning of Zaozhuang city as "Northern River Township", the design team decided to create a garden green city park along with the ambition. The overall scheme design of Zaozhuang style center adopts the characteristics of canal water system, which is surrounded by the road, and the water body is connected with the whole cultural and sports park. The flow curve encloses the space of different function, making the building and environment one breath.

Organisation

Shanghai United Design Group Co., Ltd.

Team

Shanghai United Design Group Co., Ltd.

Project Brief

Zaozhuang Stadium is a part of the local civic center project. The civic center project is laid out in symmetry and forms a new north-south axis of the city together with the Municipal Plaza and Fengming Lake on the north side. The stadium is on the southernmost part of the new city axis, which connects to other sports venues, the central square and main urban spaces, thereby creating the dialogue between the site and urban spaces. The diagonal axes are corridors that guide the sight line, and also link to main living areas of the city, and therefore, integrate into the daily activities of the surrounding residents.
The stadium is surrounded with green spaces and plazas，which form as a natural sports park.The design scheme focuses on integrating daily-use spaces with the sports venues’ functions for holding activities, competitions and other events. The sports park is completely open to the public, and the layout of mixed functions makes every corner of the park full of vitality.

Project Innovation/Need

1. A number of advanced industrial technologies are applied in the project, such as the first pre-stressed cross cable membrane structure in China, siphon drainage technology with maximum slope, curved steel structure system, etc. The completion of Zaozhuang Stadium has promoted the urban development of Zaozhuang new district and has become the best place for sports and cultural activities in the whole city.
2. The project team has provided strong technical support for the successful implementation and realization of the project by adopting a series of innovative technologies and new theories in terms of design, construction and management. Results of researches and new technologies solved a series of technical problems of the project, made construction work less difficult, improved efficiency, ensured high quality and completion of construction in time, and also achieved great economic and social benefits.
3. The self-locking slip-resistant cable clamps used in the project significantly improved the force performance of the structure and became important supports of the saddle-shaped roof structure. Therefore, comprehensive benefits were achieved. The design of the cable clamp has acquired an invention patent!

Design Challenge

Since Zaozhuang stadium is a public building for sports activities, its architectural design needs to be dynamic. One of the design concepts comes from "lanterns", a traditional object endowed by Chinese people with the intention of celebration, etiquette and praise. The whole stadium is like a traditional Chinese paper lantern, with different curved and wavy structures enclosing to form the overall facade. Those wavy curves of exteriors are inspired by the abstract patterns and grains of traditional paper lanterns, and the rooftop also continues wavy patterns. The rooftop adopts a lightweight tensile cable-membrane structure, and the bleachers are covered with white PTFE membrane, together rendering the overall roof translucent, lightweight and elegant. The roof, combined with the patterned facade featuring transparency, make the whole stadium extremely light and transparent.
Another inspiration of the architectural form comes from the city Zaozhuang's image as “Northern River Township, Ancient city of Canal”. Wave-like textures of the exteriors look like ripples that move with wind, and symbolize waves in the local canal that has never stopped for thousands of years. Elements full of tension and vitality make the building dynamic. The outer enclosure structure of the stadium is hollowed out, which is flexible as flowing water, obtaining perfect balance between stiffness and softness. The red paint and aluminum alloy materials form a strong contrast with the white outer skin, which enhances the dynamic characteristics of the building.

Sustainability

1. Innovative technologies used in Zaozhuang Stadium mainly include the spoke-wheel saddle-shaped tensile structure, self-locking anti-slip cable clamps, ultra-long concrete structure, precast fair-faced concrete bleachers and so on. The integrated spoke-wheel tensile structure, with its rationalized stress property and extremely high structural efficiency, achieves the balance of "force and beauty" for the building, and reflects advanced construction techniques and high standard.
2. A self-balancing ring cable roof structure is adopted for the roof, while prestressed precast concrete (PPC) joints are used for the external tension structure (the building enclosure). Besides, the project has the cable truss laid out in tangent lines to give the roof a dynamic rhythm.