Billions of dollars are spent constructing stadiums for spectacles like the FIFA World Cup, but as we saw in Brazil, these facilities can struggle to find much use thereafter. Ahead of the 2022 event, host Qatar has unveiled designs for a modular stadium that promises to address this dilemma, with the ability to be disassembled and reconstructed in another form in another location.
The Ras Abu Aboud Stadium is designed by Spain's Fenwick Iribarren Architects, and uses shipping containers as its primary building blocks. This is a tip of the hat to its location close to Doha's port, but also serves a very practical purpose. Each of these shipping containers will house things like removable seats, concession stands and toilets, and can be dismantled and moved off once the cup has been run and won.
This could mean that either the entire stadium is rebuilt in another location, perhaps for another World Cup, or sectioned off into smaller sports or cultural venues. All in all, the stadium will seat 40,000 and is slated for completion in 2020. Event organizers hope it can become a model of sustainability when it comes to stadium design.
"This venue offers the perfect legacy, capable of being reassembled in a new location in its entirety or built into numerous small sports and cultural venues," says Secretary General of Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, H.E. Hassan Al Thawadi. "All of this in a stadium that delivers the atmosphere fans expect at a World Cup and which we will build in a more sustainable way than ever before. I'm delighted with this design and confident that Ras Abu Aboud will become a blueprint for future mega-event planners to follow."
The video below give an idea of how the Ras Abu Aboud Stadium will come together – and maybe come apart again.
Source: FIFA, Fenwick Iribarren Architects