New design firm in Espai Barça driver’s seat

Article posted by Coliseum, September 13^th, 2022

Image: FC Barcelona

The LaLiga club FC Barcelona (Spain) has switched its approach in the delivery of its mega project – the majestic repurposing of its residence Spotify Camp Nou – by recently awarding a contract to Torrella Ingeniería – Arquitectura, a local design studio.

‘ccma.cat’ stated that the locally-based company has beaten Nikken Sekkei, the Japanese firm which in March 2016 was selected alongside Pascual i Ausió Arquitectes as the winner of the tender for the design of the above project, for the contract to execute and monitor the delivery of the scheme.

Futbol Club Barcelona, commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça, is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in LaLiga, the top flight of Spanish football.

Apply for membership

The 99,354-capacity Camp Nou, officially branded as Spotify Camp Nou for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Barcelona, Spain. It has been the home stadium of FC Barcelona since its completion in 1957.

The Espai Barça development plan goes well beyond modernization and reconstruction of FC Barcelona’s home venue Spotify Camp Nou. In addition to increasing the capacity of the current stadium to 105,000 from circa 99,000 and completely revamping the current structure of Spotify Camp Nou, the Espai Barça project entails building a new Palau Blaugrana with a capacity of 15,000, an additional court with a capacity of 2,000, an ice rink, a new social area, a new commercial area, revamped club offices, La Masía (read FC Barcelona’s youth academy), and an additional 5,000 parking spots. This ambitious initiative has been in work for several years and is scheduled to be ready for the 2024-2025 seasons. In April 2014, Espai Barça was approved by the club’s members with a budget of $700 million.

‘ccma.cat’ further stated that the above decision also affects the Catalan office B720, of the architect Fermín Vázquez, who acted as liaison between the Japanese firm and Barça and who will no longer participate in the project.

The decision does not imply ending Nikken Sekkei’s design for the new-look Camp Nou, but will now see the two companies working alongside each other, with Torrella in the supervisory role. The decision is expected to be approved by Barcelona’s Board of Directors later this month.

Basically, Torrella Ingeniería – Arquitectura will be in the driver’s seat as far as the design aspect of the facility is concerned. The design practice is based in Terrassa (Spain) and is focused almost exclusively on designing industrial buildings.

Since Torrella Ingeniería – Arquitectura is basically an industrial engineering firm per se, the company being selected has raised eyebrows among people linked to the Espai Barça project.

The Japanese architecture studio Nikken Sekkei won the design competition to carry out the Camp Nou remodeling work in 2016, in association with the Catalans Joan Pascual and Ramon Ausió Arquitectes.

Subsequently, the B720 studio replaced Pascual and Ausió, and since then was working on the Spotify Camp Nou repurposing project for five years.

Work on Spotify Camp Nou revamp is on, with mainly the third tier of the South Goal zone affected.

Preparation work on the zone started on September 1^st with the removal of equipment and fittings. This marks the start of the partial demolition of the third tier, making use of LaLiga’s break in play during November and December for the 2022 FIFA World Cup™ in Qatar.

The work will consist of removing the outer ring, the South Goal façade cantilever roof and half of the South Goal third tier, which acts as a counterweight. There are three scheduled demolition phases. The first involves the preliminary work up to the break for the World Cup. The second will see the partial demolition of the third tier, mainly involving the removal of the main structure, with new stairs and escape routes prepared to reuse the second tier seats that remain unaffected by the work.

Major work will be done during the 2023-2024 seasons, which the club will spend at the 55,926-capacity Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona, Spain.

Continue to follow Coliseum for latest updates on venues business news. Coliseum is dedicated towards building the best global community of sports and entertainment venue executives and professionals creating better and more profitable venues.

Become a member of the only Global Sports Venue Alliance and connect with stadiums, arenas and experts from around the world. Apply for membership at coliseum-online.com/alliance and make use of the 365Coliseum Business.

Watch 250 member-exclusive videos with valuable tips for your venue