Held in September and October 2023, the Hangzhou Asian Games Baseball and Softball Sports Cultural Centre was the largest new venue purpose built for the 19th Asian Games. It is expected to inject new vitality into the surrounding Hangzhou communities and help sports to become the local cultural background.
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“The intrinsic nature of sports architecture prompts us to rethink how to organise its intrinsic relationship with the city. We wanted to build a sports community driven by the stadium, which fully considers the multiple possibilities in the urban context and integrates them into urban life with a forward-looking perspective,” Head of Design and Lead Architect, Qian Xidong.
UAD believes that sports buildings should not only focus on the function of sports competitions, but also emphasise the flexibility of public services to adapt to the social trend of open sharing.
The design hopes to break the relatively enclosed stereotype of sports buildings, fully consider the multiple possibilities in the urban context, and closely combine the sports culture complex composed of the baseball field, training centre and physical training hall with a characteristic commercial street with cloud wing roof, leading the public to be immersed in the shared and integrated future sports community atmosphere.
In order to build a sports community full of vitality, the design uses multiple urban culture superposition compound functions, starting from shaping culture, scientific planning and comprehensive utilisation, and gives full play to the public service nature of sports buildings in the sports community.
The total construction area of this project is about 136,000 square meters, which is divided into two lots, A and E. Plot A contains the main and secondary baseball fields, physical training hall and supporting hotels. Plot E holds the main and secondary softball fields.
As a sports cultural park open to the public, the whole site avoids walls. Whether it is the sports cultural commercial street or the second-floor platform connecting various venues, the public can enter at any time and have a zero-distance experience.
Considering the feasibility of the operation and management of the two stages during and after the Asian Games, the project cleverly opens the internal public space of the site and organically relates it to the surrounding future community, responding to the theme spirit of the Hangzhou Asian Games of “Heart to Heart, @future”.
The venues are woven together through a ribbon of public platforms on the second floor and connected to the city streets as part of the street network. The architectural façade extracts curvilinear elements from traditional cultural symbols such as silk belts, scrolls and tile roofs, and uses curved perforated aluminium plates to create the image of Jiangnan with continuous waves. The patterns and forms of the perforated aluminium plate gives the façade a unique technical rhythm, a continuation of the traditional textile craftsmen’s poetry, and arouses the public’s memory of regional culture.
Architectural response to nature
The design pays attention to the integration of architecture and natural environment, the space function is highly changeable and adapts to local conditions to provide convenience for the sports culture community.
Besides the baseball field and softball field, the Baseball and Softball Sports Cultural Centre is also equipped with hotels, a national fitness centre and a large number of commercial service spaces, which will meet the diversified operation needs after the Asian Games and become an important supporting service centre in the future community.
The huge canopy above the venue is the key and most challenging aspect of this design. UAD used a bidirectional truss system with a maximum cantilever of 16 meters, supported by slender steel columns. The top surface is covered with PTFE film coated with titanium dioxide, covering a total area of 21,000 square meters.
The underside of the canopy is covered with curved white perforated aluminium panels. The light diffuses through the ceiling to create a rich layer of light and shadow. The translucent visual effect eliminates the oppressive feeling of the massive volume, blurring the boundary between the canopy and the sky. At night, with rich LED lighting, the ceiling is bright and transparent, providing a unique spectator experience during the game. Viewed from a distance, the entire canopy seems to float above the venue, but also like a white cloud wing, overshadowing the entire venue.
For more information, please visit www.uad.com.cn.