Sports Park Stožice, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sports Park Stožice will commence construction in March

The Sports Park Stožice is a hybrid project. Its implementation is the result of the public-private partnership between the City of Ljubljana and the Grep development company. The Sports Park Stožice integrates a football stadium and a multi-purpose sports hall with a big shopping centre, covered by the artificial landscape of the recreational park. As a result 182,000sqm Sports Park Stožice becomes one of the major focal points of Ljubljana’s urban life, attracting people of different interests and generation both during the daytime and in the evenings.

The sports hall and the football stadium, together with the big monolithic, prism-shaped residential towers of the BS3 neighbourhood, the World Trade Centre and Smelt buildings on the west side, and the forest island on the east side, create a cluster of recognisable iconic structures of the north-eastern entrance into the city.

The two storeys of the shopping centre and the interior car park fill the 12-metre deep disused gravel pit. The park that covers the roof of the shopping centre continues the natural landscape across the northern section of the outer ring road with the green urban space all the way to the city centre. The stadium and sports hall buildings frame the view of the Alps towards the north, and the castle hill and city centre towers towards the south.

The football stadium for 16,000 spectators is designed according to contemporary economic, sociological and environmental UEFA standards and is laid out under the plateau of the park. Only the roof over the stands rises above the plane of the park as a monolithic crater.

The sports hall for 12,000 spectators is located in the north-western part of the park. The four levels of concourses and the lower, VIP, and upper stands are covered by a shell-shaped dome. The park’s plateau, the edge of the shell canopy scallops and opens towards the interior. The ridges continue all the way to the top, where the facade meets the dome.

(Designed by Sadar Vuga Arhitekti with KSS, London as consultant in sports architecture; MYSI, Tel Aviv - shopping centre concept; and OFIS, Ljubljana - architect shopping centre)
source: www.worldarchitecturenews.com
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