Climate adaptation concept on a stadium

Abstract

The practice of almost any sport requires friendly and comfortable environmental conditions, cool temperatures and medium humidity levels, as well as satisfactory lighting and ventilation performance (Torsing et al., 2016). The complex challenge of designing sport infrastructure is likely to become even bigger in the expected future warmer scenario. This research focuses on the development of a climate adaptation concept for the new Feyenoord Stadium, with the goal to make it adaptable to the future climate scenario, characterized by global warming, which will lead to an increase in temperatures and heat waves. The focus of the design is mainly on the integration of passive strategies to cool down the stadium and control the indoor temperature to guarantee proper livability to users, thus reducing the need for active cooling. The research explores mainly possibilities for the design of the envelope, which represents the connection between the stadium and its surroundings. A proper design of the envelope would bring benefits both to the stadium itself and the outdoor environment, by mitigating the urban heat island effect. Indeed, the main question of this research is “how can the envelope of a large-scale stadium be designed to integrate passive strategies to provide cooling in a future warmer scenario and guarantee a comfortable micro-climate to users, while reducing the UHI in the surroundings?” Based on the literature review, different strategies were explored, and those more likely to make the Stadium adaptable to the climate of Rotterdam have been selected and analyzed in detail to be integrated into the new design. Through means of calculations and simulations, outcomes were obtained, which show that with a proper design of the envelope and some areas of the stadium, it is possible to control the indoor temperature to avoid overheating, guarantee comfort to users, and reduce the cooling demand of the building. The ultimate goal of this research is to give guidelines for a replicable design approach to be applied to stadiums around the world to deal with local climate potentials and hazards, and rely on the resources offered by the surroundings.