What makes a stadium sustainable

The net production of the farm is expected to surpass 72 million kWh in the next 20 years. The solar-powered football stadium, which replaced the old Mane Garrincha Stadium in the Brazilian federal capital Brasilia, opened in May and will host a number of matches during the FIFA World Cup as well as several events during the Rio Olympic Games in The stadium is home to the Washington Redskins football team and is the biggest venue for the National Football League NFL in America, with seating capacity for 85, The stadium produces over two and half times the power consumed during regular season games, which is equivalent to supplying approximately city homes mitigating 1,t of carbon emissions.

The sports venue, which is the home stadium for American football team New England Patriots, already produced kWh of electricity from a photovoltaic power system before NRG Solar added a further 1MW. Through an urban smart grid, the venue meets percent of its power needs through solar energy.

Water conservation practices are particularly important to California, due to the water shortages the region has been facing in recent years. The stadium has, therefore, managed to use 45 percent less water than what the strict California code requires, setting a strong example to the local community. After the construction of the stadium was completed in late , 95 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfill and 99 percent of demolition materials were recycled.

Special climate controls within the venues will also manage the excess 40C temperatures during the event. The engineering firm managed to celebrate the potential of solar power to achieve a percent zero emitting stadium despite the difficult and usually carbon intensive cooling challenge. The technology used is simple: solar power turns the sun into energy and this energy is turned into cool air. The air is then circulated around the stadium to keep the players and the spectators comfortable.

Think of all the plastics cups of beer and hot dogs in paper trays that get passed around baseball stadiums. Consider the big, blazing lights required to illuminate the football field. Add it all up and you have a pretty inefficient hub of activity, even if the fans carpooled over.

But several stadiums are working to reduce their impact. But once again, it was the chairman who had to leave instead, as supporters were heavily in favor of remaining at Tynecastle. The story about Tynecastle Park shows the strength and sentiments which may be attached to the location and the area, perhaps even more than to the quality of the stadium itself. While Bale has highlighted the symbolic significance of football stadiums as concrete symbolic representations of communities, a lot of such qualities are tied to the fact that the stadium is part of an urban landscape with plenty of social meeting points and easy access by foot, bike or public transport.

The origins of Stadio Flaminio were not particularly promising from a circular heritage point of view. We can here clearly recognize the rhetoric from today's Olympic extravaganza as well as Stadio Flaminio's own destiny in the s.

It's predecessor, Stadio Nazionale, was used during the FIFA World Cup and had a strong connection to the Mussolini regime, the main political force behind the development of what would eventually become Rome's Olympic Village in The political connotations may have furthered the demolition cause Figure 5.

Figure 5. Stadio Flaminio is situated in Rome's Parioli district, north of the city center. The stadium is located along the Via Flaminia close to the left bank of the Tiber in close proximity to other Olympic facilities from , like Palazzetto dello Sport and Villaggio Olimpico the athlete's village.

Just across the river, northwest of the athlete's village, lies Foro Italico, the main hub for sports facilities in Rome, including the majestic Stadio Olimpico. It is no exaggeration to say that this part of the eternal city is characterized by sports heritage.

The task of building a modern stadium on a historical spot was handed to Pier Luigi Nervi, the Italian engineer best known for his pioneering use of reinforced concrete as a structural and decorative material in the post-war period Iori and Poretti, , p.

His son, Antonio Nervi, was also assigned to the project as the lead architect. Construction went on from to and the stadium was inaugurated in , a good year ahead of the Olympics, without exceeding the estimated cost.

For such a large venue that is a commendable feat. Upon completion, the city of Rome had gained a All sectors of the stadium were provided with bars and other services. The most striking feature from a visual point of view was the hovering roof canopy that kept about 8. Although the stadium was purpose-built for football, which it hosted during the Olympics, it also featured four gymnasiums, a fencing hall, a covered and heated swimming pool, changing rooms and a first aid station.

This kind of functional and spatial diversity was unusual compared to the expected standard in the post-war period. From a structural engineering perspective, the stadium was top notch.

The building system, based on a complex combination of in-situ concrete and prefab concrete, was unique for this particular stadium. While concrete architecture is often associated with fixed modular systems and standard construction schemes, very little of the kind was used here. Instead, father and son Nervi devised a concept in which every building part—the grandstands, the structural frames, the roof canopies—had its own signature, construction-wise and aesthetically.

There are similar stadiums from this period but if you study the details, the individuality of Flaminio is striking, down to the smallest nuts and bolts. This made it stand out in its prime time. It also means that the building is uniquely difficult to manage today, when entrepreneurial construction normally depends on defined standards Sample, The brief of renovating it is therefore a bit of a challenge, which we shall explore soon.

The Flaminio was regarded a success during the Olympics and it had, for quite a long while, a purposeful afterlife. This event turned out to be a twist of fate for the Flaminio too, since the stadium now became vacant as a consequence and has been abandoned as a venue for sporting and cultural activities ever since. The stadium has not been left entirely to its devices, however. This application was successful and the project officially obtained the support of the Getty Foundation in June Stadio Flaminio, to develop a four-step conservation plan under the leadership of the aforementioned Romeo.

Someone must have envisioned a future for old arenas. In July the Flaminio got listed as a cultural heritage site by the city of Rome, which means that it now has legal protection and formal status as culturally significant. Even with funding and listing in place, the challenge is still pretty immense for Romeo and his team. One of the biggest issues to solve is Nervi's strong dependence on concrete—a building material that still dominates in today's sports architecture.

During the post-war period, Nervi's heydays, concrete became the most widely used material in the construction industry. It was cheap, efficient, accessible and flexible. It also turned out to be one of the most toxic and wasteful materials on the planet. For every ton of cement produced, approximately one ton of CO 2 is released Mehta and Monteiro, It devours raw materials like few other substances in the building industry.

Clearly, the hegemony of concrete in sports architecture has to be challenged in the name of sustainability. The problem is, however, that demolition of concrete architecture is also an environmental threat. The process is time-consuming, money-consuming and adds to the already negative pollution and waste account.

To tear down large concrete buildings therefore makes little sense from a circular perspective. They ought to stay in use for as long as possible. On the plus side, the technical, structural and material quality of the original work is very high compared to other concrete buildings from the same period Romeo et al.

This makes the rehabilitation all the more worthwhile. Much like the contemporary team who is now trying to fix it, Nervi surrounded himself with the best available expertise of the day during the construction of the Flaminio. Another positive aspect is the size, which makes it possible to imagine that it could work as a contemporary arena from a capacity point of view. For security reasons and the all-seating principle, it can probably only house about If a more adaptive approach had been possible the stadium could probably reach an audience of around 40, These guidelines, which must be followed in order to get international approval, can be a real obstacle for innovative preservation and adaption to local needs.

This is probably going to be one of the toughest hurdles to pass for the Flaminio conservation team. This means that a lot of effort must be placed on the fourth step of the conservation plan, which deals with guidelines for recovery and reuse. Romeo's team is undoubtedly well equipped to tackle that which lies before—the historical study, the structural analysis, the physical changes and transformations—but they have to come up with something truly remarkable in order to breed new sporting life into Stadio Flaminio.

This is particularly tricky since AS Roma are already planning a stadium elsewhere in Rome and SS Lazio dream of doing the same—they have certainly been reluctant to consider a return to Stadio Flaminio Stadium Business, What could become an option is to turn it into the official home for Italian rugby. Plans are currently under way for a three-step renovation of the entire Villaggio Olimpico. In conclusion, let us return to our opening questions in light of the two cases. Is there a future for historical stadiums?

Does football architecture have a circular design potential? The most accurate answer we can give at this point is: it depends. From an overarching perspective, the following conditions are most important: Firstly, the world of sports must become willing to take better care of its architectural legacy.

This will necessitate a major change of attitude, involving more reverie for the quality of historical venues, more investment in maintenance and more concern for local stakeholders. Secondly, there is dire need for legislative changes to make it easier to sustain existing sports venues as part of a local sporting culture. This means that guidelines for capacity, security and logistics must be adapted to the buildings and neighborhoods in question, not the other way around.

If the current guidelines continue to apply, regardless of context, reuse will remain very difficult. Thirdly, there is need for further research and investment in pilot projects like the Stadio Flaminio restoration. Presently, there are more examples of stadiums surviving against the odds—they are typically set for demolition, but the process has been stalled for various reasons—than stadiums that survive because they are actively maintained and developed.

If we get to a stage where more existing stadiums are properly financed and managed, there would be more lessons to learn from and—hopefully—positive experiences. This could become a counterweight to the prevailing approach of demolition and construction. Based on the insights gained from Tynecastle Park and Stadio Flaminio, we would argue that there is a potential for reuse and, as a radical extension of that, circular management of football architecture.

Obviously, our cases are not entirely comparable, since they represent different historical origins, different sporting contexts, different local communities, different stages of restoration, and different degrees of current usability. They nevertheless offer a number of cues for future development which could serve as a starting point for a more universal and transferable strategy for reuse of historical stadiums. From Tynecastle, there is the vital social culture, local stakeholder engagement and continuous use of the same urban property to build upon.

From Flaminio, there is the technically advanced restoration, the multi-disciplinary approach, the funding and the overall plans for new use to draw inspiration from. One thing is certain: If international sports federations and clubs want to commit themselves more to green values and withstand the test of circular principles, the journey is going to be hard, difficult and frustrating. The uplifting thing, as we have shown, is that there are theories, principles and expertise ready to aid such development.

Anything can be repaired these days. Through this surprising turn of events, the old school of preservationists has re-emerged as the avant-garde. The unlikely rise of the reuse stadium represents a similar chance of re-branding football culture. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers.

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