RECOVERY AFTER THE PANDEMIC ACCELERATES NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC APPROACHES
INSPIRATION FROM THE IAKS EXPERT CIRCLE “STADIA AND ARENAS”
The pandemic-related access regulations and closures affect user behaviour and the operation of stadia and arenas. What new technologies and socio-economic approaches are emerging for future operations? What changes will stadia and arenas have to face in the medium and long term? What does this mean for facility design? The IAKS expert circle „Stadia and Arenas“ has investigated these issues. They analyse which infrastructural tasks stadia perform in the urban context, call for their expansion to include mobility hubs, open spaces and spatial design, see potential in air-quality and hygiene standards, and point out the opportunities for collecting and using data. Inspiration from Australia, Europe, South Africa, and North and South America.
THE FUTURE ROLE OF SPORTS VENUES IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT Harald Fux, Architect, CEO of Raumkunst Sportarchitektur, Austria Gustavo Amaral, PhD Researcher and Instructor, School of Architecture | Georgia Institute of Technology, USA The role of stadia in the urban environment is core of Harald’s and Gustavo’s discourse. The two experts discuss recreational & pedestrian public use, open space use and strategic infrastructure position for emergency use. Sporting events attract hundreds of millions of people each year. To host these events, every year new large-scale sports venues are designed and built to meet the demands of an ever-evolving sports industry. Many of these facilities are often planned as cultural and economic backbones of the communities in which they are located, with the expectation that architecture and urban design can potentially lead to the creation or regeneration of entire neighbourhoods. However, at this point it is largely accepted by specialists that the investment in sports infrastructure alone is not a guarantee of successful social and economic redevelopment. In reality, in the face of the social unrest and public health crisis of our time, the urban integration of stadia and arenas has become one of the most important factors when it comes to these venues. 16
Socio-economic impact Sports venues can help create dynamic, mixed-use environments that yield tremendous economic dividends, community benefits and real estate opportunities and – most importantly – provide communities with a building typol ogy that becomes fundamental in emergency scenarios: impacts that extend far beyond the typical revenue analysis. In effect, the analysis of contemporary urban stadia projects necessitates the study of questions related to the city of the future: the impact of new building technologies in shaping how mega-projects are built, how climate change will shape the character of urban life and the infrastructure that supports it, and the socio-economic implications of all of these factors combined. Importance of strategic urban integration The COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on the sports and entertainment industries highlighted the importance of strategic urban integration, as most of these isolated stadia and arenas became useless buildings, while other facilities, better integrated within the urban network, sb 2/2022
