Image Credit : DP architects Pte Ltd
Project Overview
The GreenField was envisioned as the new home of The Forest Green Rovers, a football team with a long and storied history tracing back to 1924. Our proposal for the new stadium had three main objectives; to be a world class sporting venue for the team and fans of Forest Green Rovers, to positively engage with the wider community and to protect and serve the environment.
The GreenField is sited in a greenbelt, any buildings within this land are often contentious within the local communities. Therefore, it was important that the stadium positively impacted the landscape and maintained a distinctly rural aesthetic. To achieve this the stadium was sunk 8m down into the site, and the structure topped with soil and planted with indigenous grasses and shrubs ensuring the site looks like open, natural parkland.
In addition to the stadium’s green aesthetic, its construction embraced new green materials and technologies; from the ethically sourced, engineered timber used for the main structure to the integration of energy harvesting materials such as earth abundant thin film PV and inter seasonal heat storage.
Besides the environmental impact of the stadium the design team were concerned with the social sustainability of the stadium. Typically, sports grounds such as these are woefully underutilised, being used only for seasonal sporting fixtures and training. With this in mind we sought to create a more holistic design, one which could be used by the local community 365 days a year.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Kyle Fulton - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Joe Krentz - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Takanao Todo - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Syahirah Abbas - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Shawn Teo - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Theodore Goh - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Paul Yoo - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Muzhen Huang - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Tipaporn Thiptanee - DP Architects Pte Ltd
William Young - DP Architects Pte Ltd
Kevin Sturrock - DP Lighting
Hossein Rezai-Jorabi - Web Structure
Giovanni Vigano - Web Structure
Richard Outhwaite - Web Earth
Joseph Sayre - Venturer
Project Brief
The competition brief called for proposals to design the new Forest Green Rovers (FGR) stadium which would form the centerpiece of the proposed Eco Park development near Stroud, Gloucestershire. It said that the winning stadium should be an exceptional, iconic building, bold and innovative, designed to the highest architectural and sustainability standards. The challenge was to design a state-of-the-art stadium for a sensitive rural location, one which is an exemplar sustainable development addressing both technical and local constraints and opportunities.
Furthermore, this Football League, Division Two stadium should have a capacity of 5000 spectators, with the ability to expand to 10000 in the future. It should, where possible have flexible spaces, capable of realizing non- match day income and be in accordance with all current statutory guidance.
Project Innovation/Need
There were a number of key innovations forwarded in this design proposal;
The Invisible Stadium – As the project was to be sited within an area of natural beauty, it was important that the stadium did not negatively impact site; it’s rural character or the surrounding residential communities. In order to mitigate the problems normally associated with buildings of this typology, namely overt hardscape, noise and light pollution, we chose to sink the building mass 8m down into the site. In doing so we reduced the overall height of the building and its visual impact on the horizon. Additionally, we topped the building with the excavated soil, and planted native trees and grasses to blend with the surrounding landscape. The act of sinking the building allowed light and noise to be enclosed within its perimeter, ensuring the surrounding communities were not disturbed on match days.
Stadium as Community Hub – Football stadiums are typically inefficient in terms of their use, only being used for the short football season. This was an issue we wished to address, by siting the stadium in the North West of the site we freed up a considerable about of space allowing us to propose an edutainment park. This would become a place for children to come to learn about sustainable energy technology as well as nature. Additionally, we proposed a wide array of public spaces throughout the building such as, eco classrooms, community gardens and public sports and health facilities.
Design Challenge
There were a number of challenges we faced when designing the stadium. Firstly, there were historic oak trees and hedgerows on the site, and whilst it was not stipulated in the brief that these must be kept, we felt that they should be preserved in order to maintain the spirit of the rural site. As these natural features bisected the site, it was challenging to plan a stadium of this size and caliber within the remaining space. However, after careful consideration we were able to balance these conflicting issues by reducing the amount of seating at the two goal ends of the pitch. Secondly, there is a roman archaeological dig at the South West corner of the site which had to be preserved. In order to accommodate this, we planned the space such that this corner became a natural barrier between the public seating and the private player’s zone.
Sustainability
Besides being a football stadium, we sought to create a building which was sustainable; both in terms of social sustainability and ecological sustainability. In order to create an ecologically sustainable building we thought of the stadium as a Power Station!
Stadium as Power station – working with Specific, an innovation and knowledge centre at the University of Swansea, we sought to employ the latest sustainable technologies within the stadium. Firstly, we proposed to generate electricity by using earth abundant thin film photovoltaics. As most PV’s use rare earth materials, the associated mining causes them to be unsustainable. We also proposed to use a prototype inter seasonal heat storage technology, which uses thermo-chemical materials to store heat generated in the summer for use in the winter months. Besides these new technologies, we also proposed using solar air collectors and heat coated stadium floors to warm the space on match days, and we designed the stadium’s structure to be built from ethically sourced timber from renewable forests.
Architecture - Proposed
This award celebrates the design process and product of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. Consideration given for material selection, technology, light and shadow. The project can be a concept, tender or personal project, i.e. proposed space.
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