Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition, FGR Football Stadium, Gloucestershire Architecture Contest, Architect
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition
FGR Gloucestershire Architectural Contest Winner: New Football Stadium Building – Zaha Hadid Architects
5 Apr 2017
New Zaha Hadid designs unveiled for Forest Green Rovers Eco-park
Ecotricity has revealed two concept designs by Zaha Hadid Architects for the Green Technology Hub at Eco Park, alongside unveiling a new ‘Gateway to Stroud’ at a business breakfast this morning.
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Design
3 Nov 2016
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Winner News
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition Winner
Design: Zaha Hadid Architects
Forest Green announces Zaha Hadid Architects as stadium design winner
Thursday 3rd November 2016 – Following a seven-month international competition, Forest Green Rovers has selected Zaha Hadid Architects to design its new 5,000 seater football stadium.
Images © Zaha Hadid Architects, render by VA
Forest Green announced the competition in March this year, and quickly received over 50 entries from architects around the world, including Sweden, Germany, France, Britain and the United States.
In May, the football club shortlisted nine entries, before selecting two finalists in August, who were given another two months to take their concepts further, including building scale models.
Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder and Forest Green Rovers chairman, said: “Zaha Hadid have built some fantastic sport stadia around the world, including one at the Olympic Park in London; they’ve designed one of the five stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar, and now they’ve designed one for Forest Green.
Interior of the Seating Bowl – Phase 1:
Interior of the Seating Bowl – Phase 2:
“The really standout thing about this stadium is that it’s going to be entirely made of wood – the first time that will have been done anywhere in the world.
“The importance of using wood is not only that it’s a naturally occurring material, it has very low carbon content – about as low as it gets for a building material.
“And when you bear in mind that around three quarters of the lifetime carbon impact of any stadium comes from its building materials, you can see why that’s so important – and it’s why our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world.
“We’re thrilled with the concept and the amount of thought Zaha Hadid put into their design – their experience of stadia design and their ability to put environmental issues at the heart of what they do really stood out. They took a really challenging brief, ran with it, and have given us an iconic and original new stadium.
“We’ve done as much as we can to make our current stadium properly sustainable, but we are limited with what we can do – it simply wasn’t built with the environment in mind. At Eco Park, we’ve started with a blank sheet of paper, and we’ll be going further than anyone has done before – this really will be the greenest football stadium in the world.”
Concourse:
Zaha Hadid Architects have won numerous architectural prizes, including the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) top Stirling Prize two years running, for the MAXXI Museum in Rome (2010) and the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton (2011). Founder Dame Zaha Hadid, who passed away earlier this year, was awarded the first Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 – often referred to as the ‘Nobel Prize of architecture’.
Jim Heverin, Director at Zaha Hadid Architects, said: “We are very proud to be selected to build the new home for Forest Green Rovers – it will not only be a new stadium, but also an important addition for the community. The club’s heritage, ambition and vision reflect our own, combining the latest material research and construction techniques with new design approaches to build a more ecologically sustainable and inclusive architecture.
Interior lobby:
“With the team’s community and supporters at its core, fans will be as close as five meters from the pitch and every seat has been calculated to provide unrestricted sight lines to the entire field of play. The stadium’s continuous spectator bowl surrounding the pitch will maximise matchday atmosphere.
“Forest Green Rovers’ new stadium and Eco Park aims to be carbon neutral or carbon negative, including measures such as the provision of on-site renewable energy generation. The buildings on the site, and their embodied energy, play a substantial role in achieving this ambitious target and demonstrate sustainable architecture can be dynamic and beautiful.”
The runner-up entry came from Glen Howells Architects, the firm who designed the award-winning Gloucester Services on the M5.
Dale said: “Glen Howells also produced an exceptional design – and they impressed us as much as their design did actually. As a result, we’re going to work with them on some future projects.”
Forest Green Rovers New Football Stadium Building:
Background:
The Zaha Hadid designed stadium will be the centrepiece of the £100million Eco Park development – Ecotricity’s 100 acre sports and green technology business park proposal, beside junction 13 of the M5 in Gloucestershire.
Half of Eco Park will consist of state-of-the-art sporting facilities, including the new stadium, grass and all-weather training pitches, publicly accessible multi-disciplinary facilities, and a sports science hub.
The other half will comprise a green technology business park with sustainably built commercial offices and light industrial units, giving Eco Park the potential to create up to 4,000 jobs, including room for the continued expansion of green energy company Ecotricity, who have submitted the overall proposal and who are already the biggest employer in Stroud with 700 people located across four sites.
The proposal will also see the development of a nature reserve on the site, a potential public transport hub, including a Stroud Park and Ride, as well as help with the restoration of the Stroudwater canal.
5 Jul 2016
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition News
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition Shortlist
Glenn Howells and Zaha Hadid Architects qualify for Forest Green eco-stadium, reports the Architect’s Journal.
Source: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/glenn-howells-and-zaha-hadid-architects-qualify-for-forest-green-eco-stadium/10008298.article?blocktitle=News&contentID=16149
20 May 2016
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition 2016
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Architecture Competition
FGR Design competition Finalists revealed for £100 m new football stadium project for a semi-professional football club in Gloucestershire.
Forest Green Rovers have selected a shortlist of 9 architecture practices from almost 50 entries:
– AFL Architects
– DP Architects
– George King Architects
– Gianni Botsford Architects
– Glenn Howells Architects
– Richard Kroeker
– Studio M12
– Zaha Hadid Architects
– ZedFactory
The architecture contest is run by architects the Frank Whittle Partnership, based in Preston, Northwest England.
It is for a stadium and eco-business park on a 100-acre site beside junction 13 of the M5.
The Eco Park idea is the brainchild of the club’s chairman Dale Vince, founder of green energy firm Ecotricity, the biggest employer in nearby Stroud. He has made Forest Green the world’s first vegan football club.
The club’s latest annual accounts show it made a loss of £2.9 m last year on a turnover of just £1 m.
Vince has ambitious plans for the Eco Park. Half of it will be devoted to sporting facilities, including the new stadium, training pitches, publicly accessible facilities and a sports science hub.
The other half will have a green technology business park with sustainably built commercial offices and light industrial units.
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Competition Designs
– AFL Architects
– DP Architects
– George King Architects
– Gianni Botsford Architects
– Glenn Howells Architects
– Richard Kroeker
– Studio M12
– Zaha Hadid Architects
– ZedFactory
The proposal also includes a nature reserve and a potential public transport hub, including a park-and-ride, as well as help with the restoration of the Stroudwater canal.
Vince said the entries had been so good they “squeezed in” an extra entry to the shortlist. All finalists will now work up their designs in more detail.
Two firms, who will be paid an honorarium, will be asked to produce a scale model. The winning design will be unveiled in September.
Website: Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Building Designs
Previously:
22 March 2016
Forest Green Rovers Eco-park Design Competition News
Forest Green Rovers New Football Stadium Competition Launch
Forest Green Rovers today launched an international competition to design them an iconic new football stadium.
The new stadium will be the centrepiece of the £100million development dubbed Eco Park – a 100-acre sports and green technology business park proposal beside junction 13 of the M5 in Gloucestershire.
Dale Vince, FGR chairman, said: “This is the start of a very exciting process for us – we’ll be looking for radical, fan-focused stadium designs.
“Sustainability will be key: we expect that to run through the core of the design, as through a stick of rock.
“There are two aspects of that sustainability – first, it’s about sustainable construction, in terms of the material used, and second, it’s about the long-term operational stability of the stadium.
“We’re starting with a blank sheet of paper. We’ve taken the sustainability concept as far as we could at The New Lawn, our current stadium, and we learned a lot at the same time about what’s possible in a retrofit situation – now we want to push the boundaries with a design from scratch.”
The competition will be held in three stages – after the initial entries, the judges will select a shortlist of eight designers, who’ll be asked to produce concepts. From these, FGR will select two finalists, who will be awarded an honorarium – and they will work up their ideas in further detail, including the production of a scale model. The winning design will be unveiled in September.
The stadium will be a part of the Eco Park development, being proposed by green energy company Ecotricity: located next to junction 13 on the M5 and on either side of the A419 heading into Stroud.
Half of Eco Park will consist of state-of-the-art sporting facilities, including the new stadium, grass and all-weather training pitches, multi-disciplinary facilities that will be open to the public, and a sports science hub.
The other half will comprise a green technology business park with sustainably built commercial offices and light industrial units, giving Eco Park the potential to create up to 4,000 jobs, including room for the continued expansion of Ecotricity, which is already the biggest employer in Stroud with 700 people located across four sites in the town centre.
The final element of the proposal is a nature reserve located on the west side of the M5.
The overall concept also includes the potential development of a public transport hub, including a Stroud Park and Ride, and will also see Ecotricity help with the restoration of the Stroudwater canal under the M5.
Dale Vince continued: “Eco Park is going to be a place where green businesses and technology companies come together and share ideas, a real focal point of creativity and innovation for the area – and a part of the green industrial revolution that’s beginning to take off around the world.
“While there can only be one winner of the competition, we expect to find good people through the process who we might work with on the business park too – so this competition should lead to further opportunities for radical sustainable designs.”
Website: FGR New Football Stadium Building Competition
The New Lawn stadium is the home ground of the ‘green devils’
Address: Forest Green Rovers, The New Lawn, Another Way, Nailsworth GL6 0FG, England, UK
Phone: 01453 834860
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