Stadium Tuiliere – design description

This concept was a competition entry for Lausanne’s new football stadium. Plot envisaged for the project lies in northern Lausanne, beside the city’s international airport. Beside the 12,000-capacity stadium 8 training fields are to be built.

The Slovenian office of Sadar + Vuga came up with a very unsual, rare idea of composing the stadium of several very distinctive and independent elements. Almost as if it was unfitting or unfinished, pending possible alterations in the future and at the same time easy to understand by use of simple and clear forms.

The most important element is the concrete bowl of stands, left entirely bare from the outside. It reveals scissor-shaped prefabricates supporting both the audience and the roof. To enhance atmosphere, the stands are very compact and steep, while additional wall (mimicking the stands in shape) leading up to the roof would prevent and wind and make it feel nearly an indoor stadium.

Meanwhile from the outside the stadium is nearly limited to the stands themselves, even catering stalls and toiles are simply covered with light roofs and would otherwise be outside. One unusual “enclosure” is the proposed training running track that encircles the entire stadium.

Another distinctive form is the main building along the western stand. Lighweight glass cladding decorates the simple structure and makes it stand out. And finally we get to the roof: strong and thick yet seemingly light, this truss of laminated wood would have been the biggest of its kind. Would have, because it won’t. A different vision won the competition. Still, don’t you agree with us this one is also worth knowing?