MVRDV scoops Tirana arena design brief

Image: MVRDV

MVRDV has landed the spoils in the competition to design the new Asllan Rusi Sports Palace in the Albanian capital Tirana.

The new venue will be part of a mixed-use complex that includes the 6,000-seat arena for basketball and volleyball as well as residential apartments, a hotel, and ground-level retail units.

MVRDV said that taking the form of a sphere over 100 meters in diameter, its design proposal combines these functions into a monumental stadium space that blends sport and community into a cohesive environment.

Named The Grand Ballroom, the venue will become a new addition to the city’s collection of distinctive architectural projects, and a spectacular destination where the city’s residents can gather.

The design’s distinctive feature, its spherical shape, accomplishes much more than simply creating an iconic structure along the road connecting the airport to the city centre.

Image: MVRDV

By stacking the hotel and residential functions on top of the arena itself, the design accommodates a significant amount of programme on a relatively small site.

By making the building rounded, it avoids creating any “rear” façades that neglect the surrounding neighbourhood.

And by tapering inwards towards the building’s base, it creates more space for public plazas and outdoor sports facilities that can be used by local children. By tapering inward at the top, it creates terraces for the building’s residents.

The building’s functions are arranged in layers. Where the sphere meets the ground, it connects with the earth, creating a lower-ground floor with steps and tribunes leading down to a ring of retail spaces, cafés, and amenities that support the arena’s events.

Image: MVRDV

Above this is the arena itself, accessed by short bridges at ground level, with the main venue flanked by two additional training courts hidden beneath the stands.

The hotel occupies two floors above this, allowing guests to see matches from the windows of rooms on the lower level of the hotel, and from the amenity spaces on the upper level which cantilever over the stands to create an oculus in the arena ceiling.

The oculus can be closed with a thick layer of glass to form a soundproof barrier while maintaining a visual connection between the upper and lower volumes.

Above this level, apartments are contained within the sphere’s double-shell structure, forming a colossal semi-outdoor domed space on the interior – almost a mirror of the bowl-shaped arena.

Image: MVRDV

This space becomes a courtyard garden for residents, with mature trees and furniture for relaxing. In places, the dome of apartments gives way to three- and four-storey rectangular holes punched through the building’s shell, allowing natural ventilation and creating additional communal green spaces for residences, each with its own theme.

MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas said, “The Grand Ballroom will become a beacon, aiming to inspire and encourage people to play and to watch sport. A place to play, meet, and celebrate.

“The spherical shape is a reference to the round ball used by so many sports. Yet it also recalls enlightenment temples, from Étienne-Louis Boullée’s Cenotaph for Newton to Buckminster Fuller’s tribute to technological optimism, the geodesic dome.

“A great sphere in the heart of Tirana can similarly become a temple to sport and community. By connecting the different functions, it invites everyone in the building to be part of the action.

Image: MVRDV

“By providing public spaces complete with sports facilities, it becomes a part of its neighbourhood. By serving as a landmark, it draws people from all over the city and beyond to gather together and celebrate. It thus continues the growing Tirana Collection of new buildings.”

The competition entry was produced by a consortium comprising Trema Tech, Likado, Albanian Capital Group and BCN Investments.

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