Taizhou Sports Park Stadium – stadium description

How was Taizhou Sports Park developed?

A new sports complex in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, was planned in the southern part of the city, on a heavily developed area that was formerly farmland. A rectangular plot of land has been designated adjacent to a large new park. The complex fills a gap in the lack of large and modern sports facilities in the city, but the main idea behind its construction was to host the 2022 provincial games. In 2018, Taizhou was awarded the right to organise the event and construction work began then.

Initially, the facilities were planned to be operational as early as the end of 2020, but it was only a year later that work was nearing completion. From the beginning of 2022, the new arenas began to be used cautiously. In July, the preliminary stage of the athletics competition of the Jiangsu Provincial Games was held at the stadium at the complex, without public participation. The real inauguration, however, was the opening ceremony of the main part of the Games, which took place at the stadium on August 28, 2022. The entire centre cost 2.54 billion yuan to build.

What are the characteristics of Taizhou Sports Park?

The Taizhou Sports Park consists primarily of a multi-purpose stadium and three buildings close to each other that house a sports hall with stands for 6,000 spectators, an auxiliary sports hall and a swimming pool complex. Both the stadium and the arenas are surrounded by two elevated platforms, which are extended by wide promenades running to the east and west ends of the complex respectively.

Between the stadium and the halls there is a wide square. Surrounding the main facilities, there is also a training track, small football and multi-purpose pitches, tennis courts, auxiliary buildings, paths, lawns and planting, as well as access roads and 1,500 parking spaces. The water channel running in the western part of the complex has been suitably shaped and integrated into the landscape.

The main theme that the architects designing the complex followed was the symbolism associated with the myth of the phoenix. The stadium at Taizhou Sports Park is referred to as the 'phoenix's nest'.

What does the stadium at Taizhou Sports Park complex look like?

The stadium at Taizhou Sports Park complex is equipped with an athletics track, surrounded by stands capable of holding 30,000 spectators. The first rows of the auditorium are above the level of the pitch, and are further separated from the running track by a narrow ditch. The tallest of all the main stands is located on the west side. It has an upper tier and VIP boxes.

The auditorium is equipped with plastic seats, arranged in a mosaic (colours: dark blue, light blue and white). In the upper tier of the main stand, the seats additionally form a pattern arranged in Olympic circles, and on the eastern stand an inscription was created with the name of the city in Latin characters. A video screen was placed on the south arch.

The auditorium is covered by a roof, under which floodlights have been installed. The ends of the canopy are glazed. On the outside, the stands are covered by a bright, perforated façade with triangular patterns, equipped with LEDs that can turn the exterior into a large multimedia screen at night. On the east side, a sizable arch-shaped gap has been created in the façade.