“Our company has spent a lot of time in the States
and both myself and Daniel were very interested in the
way stadia over there dealt with the customer. We all
agreed that we wanted to take a much more democratic
approach to the design, so anyone with a ticket, not just
those with corporate hospitality, could have an amazing
experience,” he adds.
The result is a striking 62,062-seat structure, which
is the biggest soccer club stadium in London, that
boasts uninterrupted sightlines for spectators, who
sit closer to the pitch than at any comparable venue
in the UK. The stands are angled at 35 degrees - the
steepest angle that UK guidelines recommend - to
create a tighter, atmospheric stadium bowl, acoustically
engineered with reflective panels on the underside
of the roof to minimize the loss of noise from the
stadium and amplify the noise of a roaring crowd.
Lee claims that a joint decision with lead engineers
BuroHappold to use post tension concrete from the
very beginning freed up his firm to get more creative
with the space, creating larger column grids that
allowed for bigger stands and corporate boxes.
A fact that is perfectly brought-to-life by the
imposing 17,500-seat single-tier home end stand,
which is the largest of its kind in the country.
MODEL BEHAVIOR
Robin Stanfield, head of client management at BMT Fluid
Mechanics, an international wind engineering consultancy,
explains how the company handled challenges presented
by the building design.
“BMT was brought on board to look after the wind engineering work
for the new stadium. Early indications suggested that a key challenge
would be centered upon accurate modeling of the unique façade
wrap, which could not only create very localized peak wind
pressures, but also influence how the wind behaved over other parts
of the envelope. Later, assessing the roof wind loading for various
construction scenarios really pushed the scale of the analyses work
beyond what we would commonly expect.
Yet, going back to the start of our involvement, a key challenge was
to ensure the external microclimate would meet the stringent wind
speed standards required by the UK’s town planning regulations,
which are especially enforced by authorities in London. Not only did
the scheme design need to ensure safe and pleasant wind conditions
around the perimeter of the stadium, it needed to futureproof those
conditions, looking ahead to when several tall buildings will be built
alongside the new structure.
All of the work made use of state-of-the-art wind tunnel modeling
technologies, which we always employ when working on modern
stadia. The structures of tall buildings, bridges, and stadia are
inherently flexible and it is imperative to understand how signature
structures behave and respond in the wind. Wind tunnel testing has
been carried out on several iconic stadia, with emerging venues, such
as those for FIFA 2022 in Qatar, now following in the footsteps of THFC
and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.”
Populous
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM
www.stadia-magazine.com June 2019 17
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