IDOM captivating Zaragoza venue renderings

Article posted by Coliseum, May 18^th, 2023

Image: IDOM

The Segunda División club Real Zaragoza presented on May 12^th at a presser the first renderings of the architectural concept of La Romareda Stadium in Zaragoza, Spain, which will be able to hold 42,500 spectators.

‘IDOM’ stated that design firm IDOM has been in charge of the preliminary design of the new stadium, a process in which they have taken into account the main aspects that today are key in the state-of-the-art stadiums, such as:

Creating the best soccer atmosphere to provide spectators an enchanting experience;
Converting the La Romareda Stadium into a venue that can host the highest number of international competitions;
Setting sustainability benchmark;
Using cutting-edge technology for security and broadcast purposes; and
Making the new home of Real Zaragoza an iconic stadium and a crown on the City of Zaragoza.

Real Zaragoza, S.A.D., commonly referred to as Zaragoza, is a football club based in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, that currently competes in the Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system. Zaragoza holds its home games at the La Romareda Stadium.

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The Estadio La Romareda is the home stadium of Real Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain. It was inaugurated on September 8^th, 1957. The official capacity of the venue is 33,608, with an average attendance of around 20,000 for Real Zaragoza matches.

Zaragoza wants to build a new venue in the City of Zaragoza in Spain on the site where their present home ground stands – the Estadio La Romareda in Zaragoza, Spain. But the club’s ordeal over the years on building a new home arena never seems to end. However, hope seems to be floating with the above development.

Bilbao (Spain)-based IDOM is a multinational corporation which provides consulting, engineering and architecture services in Spain and internationally.

Javier Dávila de Eusebio, Sports Architecture BDM, IDOM, Spain, is a Member of Coliseum – Global Sports Venue Alliance.

‘IDOM’ further stated that one of the objectives is that the stadium will be one of the venues in the joint bid of Spain, Portugal and Morocco to host the 2030 World Cup. Keeping this objective in mind, the design has been carved out to cater to the criteria laid down by FIFA, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Spanish Football Federation, and LaLiga.

The 2030 FIFA World Cup™ will be the 24^th FIFA World Cup™, a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men’s national teams of the member-associations of FIFA. The event will mark the centenary of the first World Cup.

Zürich (Switzerland)-based the Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA) is the international governing body of association football, beach soccer and futsal. It was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Nyon (Switzerland)-based the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach football in Europe and the transcontinental countries of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, and Kazakhstan, as well as some Asian countries such as Israel, Cyprus and Armenia. The UEFA consists of 55 national association members. Because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian national teams and clubs from any FIFA and UEFA competitions.

The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) is the governing body of football in Spain. It is based in La Ciudad del Fútbol of Las Rozas, a municipality near Madrid, Spain. It was founded on September 29^th, 1913.

The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as LaLiga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men’s top professional football division of the Spanish football league system.

The preliminary design contemplates the integration of tertiary and tertiary sports uses adjacent to the stadium. These uses are integrated not only in the functional aspect, but also in the architectural aspect with a unitary envelope creating the final image of the New Romareda.

Concept

A crucial starting point was the decision to design a stadium that would look towards the City, a venue which would blend with the City of Zaragoza keeping in mind the geographical factors.

The stadium will sit on a site where the Ebro Valley is located and the wind blows hard – the ‘cierzo’ (the cierzo is a strong, dry and usually cold wind that blows from the North or Northwest through the regions of Aragon, La Rioja and Navarra in the Ebro Valley in Spain. It takes place when there is an anticyclone in the Bay of Biscay and a low-pressure area in the Mediterranean Sea). While designing the stadium, the ‘cierzo’ factor has been kept in mind.

Commented César Azcárate, Director of Sports and Events at IDOM, “Focusing on the ‘cierzo’ flows, we have designed the stadium and the roof accordingly pitching for the use of fluid and dynamic elements. The piece is deformed by drawing concave shapes in the North and South areas of the volume, giving greater amplitude to the urban space and convex shapes in the East and West areas. The stadium, the plaza and the park have been merged thus creating space not just for the facility but also for the City.”

The compactness of the volume and the uniformity of the façade have been key in giving shape to the stadium design. The North and South grandstands function in a different way and will only be soccer-specific. The roof has been conceived as a light element that expresses movement and, at the same time, act as a shield to the West of the facility and offer sweeping views to the East. It covers 100 percent of the surface area of the stands, extending outwards thus creating a 360 degree promenade with mesmerizing views of the City.

What by day is a serene façade becomes a vibrant and dynamic element at night. The light will hit the double shell and the roof and will provide a clear view of the activities going on inside the arena. The spectators are part of this atmosphere.

General public access to the stadium is on the first floor, through the upper part of the lower tier, thus facilitating the integration of the total volume of the stadium. In addition, this will facilitate evacuation, if necessary, as the spectators in the lower tier have direct ingress and egress from and to the street, with only stairs for the spectators in the upper tier and the hospitality stands.

From inside the stadium, two rings of the main stands have been designed for the general public and two hospitality stands have been interspersed in the Preference Grandstand and one ring for the general public depending on the demand in the East Grandstand.

The design includes areas for the VIP guests on the second floor, the VIP boxes and presidential boxes on the second floor and the Pitch Club with views of the players’ tunnel. The hospitality space has its own core areas and is different from the space meant for the general public.

The bowl or grandstand is conceived as the heart of the stadium as it is a vantage point from where fans can watch the action. After several geometric calculations, a bowl has been designed for the stadium which will be a compact space and will be close to the pitch action so that fans can enjoy to the hilt.

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