2011 AREA 12

This project was born primarily by comparison with the “Delle Alpi” stadium, a giant about 90.000 seats, designed with a structure mainly composed by tense elements that, although defects of visibility, gave to the structure a charm unique.

The great operation of transformation started by the need of Juventus Fc to modify the “Delle Alpi” in a stadium closer to the expectations of the contemporary football, going from 90.000 to 40.000 spectators now adopted by many Europeans clubs, removing the athletics track on the sideline and equipping the structure of all the spaces needed to host exhibitions events and gatherings.

It’s useful to show some numbers that best explain the size of the intervention:

-surface area of intervention: 356.000 square meters

-total floor area new stadium: 50.000 square meters

-seats: 41.000

-distance between the field and the first row: 7,5 meters

-distance between the field and the last row of the grandstand: 49 meters

-parking spaces: 4.000

-outdoor green areas: 30.000 square meters

These data clearly demonstrate that on the old stadium foundation structures it was “resting” a new system able to meet those that, nowadays, are the characteristics required by clubs and by FIFA; it’s also interesting to highlight how the implementation costs were very low compared to the amount of work to performed, reaching a total of 110.000.000€ overall.

To completion of the sport plant, have been designed and made “related activities”, in the specific of commercial type, activities that have made possible the economic and financial equilibrium of the whole operation and, more importantly, made daily lived those areas that, generally, to outline the stadiums remain empty in the absence of sporting events.

As responsible for the design I dealt with the commercial side, designed with certain parameters which later will be useful to highlight but before, also in this case, it’s good to show some numbers that describe the size of the intervention:

-built area: 34.000 square meters

-sales area: 19.500 square meters

-buildings green cover: 17.000 square meters

-buildings width transverse dimension: 100 meters

-road front length: 500 meters

-commercial layout: superstore, 54 shops, 6 restaurants, 1 bricolage

With these data is easier to describe the design parameters, primarily based on the idea of mitigating the great mass of the buildings and make it consistent with the geometry of the stadium. It’s in fact the stadium, with his stand, the geometric matrix, where we started to draw the silhouettes, generated by a curve made by two different arcs of circle which envelop the sport plant almost to form a “podium” from which come out his facade in aluminium shingles high 20 meters.

The biggest challenge was managing a front of 500 meters of lenght developed on the above described curve and 13 meters high that, if interpreted with the traditional frame of mind “road-sidewalk-facade” could be in danger of becoming monumental and little in tune with the stadium, real “star” of the intervention. For this reason it was decided to work with an “object”, a huge urban scale sculpture able to contain all the necessary surfaces but without the charateristics of commercial facades, like for example, logos, written and advertisings that, often, return an image of disorder and make incomprehensible the scale of the buildings that there’s in front of.

The solution adopted has been an alluminium shell that “wrap” the mall, developed according to a curve in close relation with that used for the casing of the stadium; it’s very important to note that a similar shell it’s not suitable to accommodate advertising signs, and this makes it a clean and recognizable sign in the urban context, key aspect for the success of the commercial spaces, no longer recognizable for the noise of the slogans but for the simplicity of the sign in which are contained.