A Sports Park for the Asian Games & Beyond

Selected from a group of 5 international architecture firms, Archi-Tectonics won this competition for the 2022 Asian Games with a bold and innovative design, fusing landscape and building program into a tridimensional land-form. Like pebbles in a river, two iconic stadiums and various other building objects are forming the gravitational nodes of a fluid park landscape for the surrounding city.

In collaboration with !Melk landscape design, Mobility in Chain, and Thornton Tomasetti structural engineers, the team created a multi-functional 47ha sports park with a table tennis and a field hockey stadium, a semi-recessed fitness center and visitor center, a sunken shopping mall and multiple parking garages, with a total construction area of 188,000 m2.

Table Tennis Stadium

Rather than thinking of the stadium as an inert object in the landscape, Archi-Tectonics envisioned the Table Tennis stadium as a multi-dimensional body, seamlessly integrating the event spaces through a sequence of layers and thresholds into the surrounding park landscape. The intersection of the stadium’s 2 volumes, a glass diagrid volume and a brass shingled ring, allow visitors to meander through and to slip into the inner volume with the seating arena, a special shape , a hybrid between a sport arena and theater seating, ready for the future of Hangzhou.

Field Hockey Stadium

Inspired by the extreme physical strength and lightness of bamboo, as well as Meinong oil-paper umbrellas, we developed the Field Hockey Stadium’s roof as a lightweight and diaphanous wing. This self-supporting thin wing forms a luminous weather and sun roof above the Field hockey building with its seating arena. Placed into a circular depression within the landscape, the hockey field is integral part of the surrounding park and thus naturally translates between the geometric turf of the playing field and the surrounding hills.

Valley Village Shopping Concept

The stadium structures at both ends of the park are connected by a sunken Valley Village mall, an undulating commercial spine with shops, restaurants, kiosks and underground parking, crossing below the existing Yiyang Road and River. This fluid and natural connection between various programs guarantees not only the seamless circulation during the Asian Games, but also the future success of the project as a lively and active urban space.

Credits:
Year: Competition won: 2018, Construction phase: 2020, Substantial completion: 2021
Location: Hangzhou, China
Client: Government: Gongshu District City Village Reconstruction Department
Project Type: 16-acre eco park with 2 stadiums, shopping mall, visitors and fitness centers, and 2 parking garages for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games
Size: 46.7 hectare park, 35,000 m2 Table Tennis stadium (5000 seats), 15,000 m2 Field Hockey stadium (5000 seats), 29,000 m2 commercial mall, 23,00 m2 fitness center, and 68,000 m2 underground parking, all with green roofs and natural ventilation
Design Team: Principal in charge: Winka Dubbeldam, Assoc. AIA | Project Leader: Justin Korhammer | Main Designers: Paul Starosta, Max Boerman | Archi-Tectonics Team: Dongliang Li, Maud Fonteyne, Soyeon Cha, Boden Davies, Alex Bahr, Dan Rothbart, Bowen Qin
Consultants:
Structural Engineers: Thornton Tomasetti
Transport Planning: Mobility in Chain, Italy
Mechanical Engineers: Ryan Soames Engineering
Collaborators: !melk Landscape Design | UAD Research group, Hangzhou, China