Computational method for football stadium renovation

Abstract

A growing trend is present nowadays towards the renovation of football stadiums with the main objectives of enhancing the capacity of the venues and of mproving the user experience of the spectators. The stadium design process requires to blend multiple components together, while evaluating different performances and complying with several requirements. In addition, the complexity of the process is increased in case of a renovation by considering the constraints and the components of the existing stadium. Hence, the decision-making process of the designer results to be difficult and it is likely to produce few inefficient designs. The introduction of computational methods can facilitate the decision-making process, allowing the designer to explore multiple solutions and to produce more efficient designs. This study explores how a computational method can be developed for stadium renovation to support the designer into making decisions in the early design phase, allowing them to explore multiple solutions that improve the initial performances of the stadium. A digital workflow was developed to generate different existing stadiums and to evaluate the performances related to the viewing quality and the roof structure. The study highlights how a designer is able to identify the portions to be kept based on the performances of the stadium and to develop a concept for the renovation, from which multiple design alternatives can be produced in the optimization process. Inefficient designs can be identified quickly and discarded, allowing to concentrate on more efficient concepts for the renovation, which will be further developed in the subsequent phases of the design process.