Education City Stadium

Education City, Doha, Qatar

Project details
Client

Supreme Committee and Qatar Foundation

Architect

Fenwick-Iribarren Architects/BDP Pattern

Duration

2016 – 2020

Services provided by Buro Happold

Acoustics, Audio Visual (AV), Bridge engineering and civil structures, Building Information Management (BIM), Building Services Engineering (MEP), Environmental consultancy, Ground engineering, Lighting design, Structural engineering, Sustainability, Technology

Education City Stadium is one of seven venues in Qatar constructed specifically for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Holding 45,350 people, this spectacular ground will stage eight matches, from group games through to the quarter finals.

Starting in 1930, there have been 21 football World Cups hosted by 17 countries. This will be the first time that the tournament is held in the Middle East. During the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a combined 3.57 billion people – more than half of the global population aged four and over – tuned in to watch the action.

Undoubtedly, this is a landmark event for the country, the region and the planet. In servicing not only the game but also the crowd and a massive viewing audience, the stadium has to offer steadfast functionality through artful design that never diverts attention from the pitch. Crucially, too, it must work as a legacy piece that will benefit the people of Qatar. To help meet these aims, Buro Happold was engaged to design and deliver a range of key deliverables across the project.

Challenge

Completion of the project presented several notable challenges, despite the decision to stage the tournament in winter rather than summer to avoid extremely hot weather.

In structural terms, our design responded to various elements; FIFA requirements defined the bowl shape, sight lines and necessary lighting while allowing for the large amount of building services (MEP) equipment necessary to provide spectator comfort. A central challenge was balancing the demands of a fast-paced programme with an unmissable deadline and a client body with exacting requirements and rigorous experts.

From a building services (MEP) perspective, this eclipsed any sports building undertaken by Buro Happold. There were detailed and strict thermal comfort requirements for players and spectators but also a requirement for the stadium to have an open roof. Cooling an open-air stadium was a novel challenge as, historically, stadium spectator areas are not cooled.

This stadium is open to the sun, external air and wind. Changing the dates from summer to winter helped, though the value engineering increased the size of the opening in the roof – exposing the stadium to more sunlight. Gusts of warm air will periodically drive out the cool air from within the stadium. Design requirements stipulated that the conditions recover within five minutes, meaning the return of cool air to the seating areas.

In terms of environmental modelling, we were researching, experimenting, and designing in a field that very few engineers have tried before. The client had a team of world-leading experts to scrutinise our work intensely and rigorously. The BIM modelling, too, was a step change in standards and subject to weekly assessment by the client and design team.

Regarding sustainability, all World Cups have significant obstacles to overcome. Most obviously in this case, Qatar’s climate makes cooling and water use a prime consideration.

External night time view of Education City Stadium Qatar
This truly inspiring 45,350 capacity stadium offers an amazing experience for fans while standing as a symbol of innovation, sustainability and progress. Image: BPD Pattern and Dow Photography.

Solution

The contractor invited our structural engineering team to value engineer the original design after FIFA announced the move from a summer to a winter tournament. Our input was key to the success of the contractor’s proposal.

This was largely due to our redesign of the roof, which transformed a large steel shell into a gravity-stressed cable net system and saved 5,000 tonnes of steel. This was a reduction of nearly 50% from the inherited scheme design, which was achieved while retaining the stadium’s original form. Our cable net redesign also dropped the height of the roof by nine meters. As a legacy measure, we designed this structural element to incorporate a roof liner that would buffer the stadium bowl from the hot summer air and allow year-round use.

Inside the stadium, cool air is provided mechanically. We created plenums – air distribution boxes – under the seating tiers, which are pressurised with cool air to be released below the spectators.

While this reduced overall project cost it squeezed the floor-to-floor heights and plant room spaces available for building services (MEP) equipment. Our mechanical design had to respond to this and significant programme pressures. Having completed this testing work, we are now recognised experts in the field of stadium cooling.

Empty pitch at Education City Stadium Qatar
Cooling an open air stadium presented a complex challenge for our building services team who developed an innovative cooling system to meet strict thermal comfort requirements. Image: BPD Pattern and Dow Photography.

The CFD studies involved more than six experts for over two years, advising and verifying the comfort conditions inside of the stadium according to the mechanical design. Our environmental and thermal comfort models became so detailed and complex that they were three times as dense as the original employer’s requirements, necessitating a dedicated external server to run the models. The client feedback was that our team had done the best quality analysis of any of the World Cup venues.

Throughout our BIM disciplines, we have developed new standards in coordination, clash detection and data retention while delivering a large, extremely complex building.

Internal view of Education City Stadium Qatar roof
Our cable net redesign of the roof saved over 5,000 tonnes of steel – a reduction of nearly 50% from the inherited design scheme. Image: BPD Pattern and Dow Photography.

Value

Overall, Buro Happold’s participation in this project allowed us to optimise the engineering systems and reduce the carbon footprint as a result. In 2020, Education City Stadium became the first Qatar 2022 tournament venue to receive a five-star rating from the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS). This prestigious certificate – presented by the Gulf Organisation for Research & Development – recognises excellence in sustainability, design and construction.

Following the World Cup, the stadium will be converted into a sporting hub for the surrounding universities and local community. The upper tier of seating, which is modular, will be removed and donated to countries with less developed leisure infrastructure. This will reduce capacity to a more appropriate 20,000. The bowl cooling system allows the venue to be used all year rather than have it forcibly standing empty during the hot summer.

The design also makes use of passive elements. For example, the structure has been built at a lower level than the natural grade, which adds to the project’s overall insulation and temperature control mechanism. This will reduce energy consumption pertaining to cooling needs.

I wish I was still playing because to play in stadiums like this, it’s a dream. Players are going to be spoilt here.

Former England Captain, David Beckham

It is worth noting that the Qatar World Cup will have the most geographically compact footprint since 1930 – when only a single venue was used – with all stadiums situated no further than 35 miles from Doha. This allows some services and facilities to be centralised while hugely reducing travel for players and fans alike. By way of comparison, in the 1994 World Cup – held in the USA – Italy beat Bulgaria in East Rutherford, New Jersey before playing Brazil in Pasadena, which is 2,345 miles away.

Buro Happold delivered a vastly improved iteration of the previous design, enabling the brief’s high performance to be retained while substantially reducing the cost and embodied carbon – saving over 50% of the steel – and delivering on time. Such innovations as the bowl cooling system and cable roof structure will help to create an exceptional experience both on and off the pitch for years to come.

External view of gates at Education City Stadium Qatar
The stadium has been carefully designed with the future in mind and will remain a focal point of the community long after the FIFA World Cup 2022 is over. Image: BPD Pattern and Dow Photography.

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