The Quzhou Stadium designed by MAD stood out from more than 4,500 projects in 15 categories from around the world and won the Archdaily 2023 "Sports Architecture" category award. It is also the only winning project in this category.

Archdaily is the world's largest architecture website. In the past three weeks and two rounds of selection, Archdaily received more than 150,000 votes and selected the winners of 2023.

"Quzhou Stadium is a continuation of the surrounding landscape. This 30,000-seat stadium is different from other typical fortress-style sports buildings. It uses a variety of technical means to maximize the openness of citizens from all angles."

Quzhou Stadium

"There is no boundary between architecture and city, they are just different in scale. What I pursue is something emotional - whether it is a small building, a large public building, or a space environment of urban scale, as long as it can make people feel and resonate, it can be said to have "humanity". This "humanity" transcends the specific care of function and body, and brings resonance from the psychological and emotional aspects."

——Ma Yansong

Quzhou Sports Park abandons the traditional modern urban construction model of large squares and large landmarks, and takes land art and natural landscapes as the starting point of urban space design. It pursues the spiritual unity of people, nature and culture in the city, and creates a land art landscape shaped like volcanoes and mirror lakes in the city center. It also creates an urban public space that is connected with nature, open, shared, and belongs to the citizens.

The building is connected to nature everywhere, and people inside are immersed in nature and feel the spiritual pursuit driven by the artistic conception of heaven and earth. After the overall completion, Quzhou Sports Park will become the largest earth-covered building complex in the world.

Urban public space like land art

The 30,000-seat stadium, shaped like a meteorite crater, lies on the ground. The huge stand structure is hidden and the building volume disappears. The facade is covered with green plants, becoming the landscape itself.

The white lines carve out new curves, part of which actually carries the function of a pedestrian walkway. The slope of the facade just happens to become a new place for citizens to exercise, climb, and ascend; the lawn on the gentle slope can also be a place for people to rest after exercise.

Rustic concrete

60 sets of locally produced concrete columns and walls support the entire stadium. The exposed wood-grained bare concrete wall abandons the internal and external decorative layers, and is both the structure and the building itself.

Special-shaped hyperbolic concrete shapes the entrances and exits of the venue. The main north and south entrances are composed of circles of arches arranged in an orderly manner, with the largest span of nearly 40 meters.

Floating light corona

The "light corona" wind and rain cover supported by a steel structure is supported on the stands through 9 landing points, with the maximum span between the landing points reaching 95 meters.

The translucent PTFE membrane material wrapped on the outside not only creates an architectural form like clouds floating above the earth, but also enhances the noise reduction performance of the canopy.

Natural and organic visual effects

The seats in the grandstand area are closely linked to the overall design concept of "landscape", with the theme of "sunlight shining through the gaps in the leaves", and are organically divided through five gradient colors. The green seats of different shades are evenly arranged on the saddle-shaped grandstand, creating a fresh and continuous visual effect.

Sustainable Application

Except for the stands and the inner field, other functional spaces of the stadium are located under the covered landscape ground. This treatment not only reduces the temperature fluctuations in the interior space of the building, but also helps to adapt to environmental changes and deal with natural disasters caused by rain.

In October 2021, Quzhou Stadium, as the first phase of Quzhou Sports Park, was officially put into use. In addition to hosting events, the venue is also open to citizens on a daily basis. Citizens can visit, stay or engage in daily exercise freely.

※ Photographers of the pictures in this article: Aoguan Architectural Vision, CreatAR Images