The rising artificial eco-island north of Hainan could have been a place of the first large floating stadium. It most likely won’t as a different masterplan won the international competition.

A couple weeks ago in China the international competition for “Eco-Island” masterplan was resolved. 10 of the leading global architectural firms were invited to created their visions for 250 hectares of artificially-created island in the Haikou Bay.

The island, as you can see in the below satellite photos, is already in place. Construction of the first facilities should begin in 2017 and will last no less than 10 years. HNA Infrastructure, the investor, earmarked under $1.3 billion for the project, though it’s almost certain that it will cost significantly more.

Main idea behind the island is to boost the image of Haikou (2.5 million city) and the entire island of Hainan in southern China (9 million population) as China’s prime tourist destination. The Eco-Island should thus be iconic in design and focused on leisure and tourism. Connected by a bridge already, it should also allow no fewer than two cruise liners at a time to be parked beside it.

We wouldn’t probably write anything about the entire project, were it not for the fact that 5 out of 10 bidders included a stadium for football and/or athletics in their concepts. This would have made it an absolutely unique site for a stadium to be built in, though none of these bids proved successful. The winning scheme (below), by New York’s Diller Scofidio + Renfro, doesn’t include a stadium, though StadiumDB understands that a final design is yet to be drawn will depend on actual commercial demand.

Now, below we present to you all those bids that did include a stadium within the island or even on water!

Morphosis

OAB Carlos Ferrater

BIDG

Kuiper Compagnons

CCDI