The renovation and modernization works transformed the existing stadium into a modern complex for professional sports, including football for the local club „Eintracht Braunschweig“, American football for the „Braunschweig Lions“, as well as athletic competitions on national and international level.
Schulitz Architekten won the architectural competition in 2006 with an convincing urban concept including the modernization of the main stands and a rectangular office building for the local club “Eintracht Braunschweig”. The design incorporates all stadium requirements in the professional sports business. Apart from to a new covered distribution platform with concession stands for football fans and an area for VIP guests, the design also offers new press areas, a business lounge for approx. 1600 guests and 20 skyboxes.
The business lounge level and the skybox level are connected by an open space, allowing great views from one level to the other, as well as a generous view over the stadium‘s entry plaza. The vertical external sun shading elements not only give the stadium a unique identity, but also prevent solar energy gains in the building. The sun-shading concept in combination with further energy-saving concepts minimize the energy consumption of the building.
Cologne’s new ice and swim stadium Lentpark accommodates two ice rinks, an indoor swim centre with a variety of pools, a sauna, an outdoor natural water swimming pond and a restaurant. An elevated ice skating track, unprecedented in Europe, runs as a round circuit through every part of the building providing exciting views inside and outside. An intelligent cross-linking of the building services allows for the seemingly contradictory climatic requirements of an ice and swimming facility to operate in an energy efficient manner, making it the first ice sports facility in the European Union’s Green Building Program.
The principal design concept of the stadium is a completely transparent triangular form which unites the different parts of the building in both a functional and aesthetic fashion. On the north-west side lies the 1,800 square meter ice rink. On the south-east side the lap pool and recreational pools can be found. The entrance hall is centrally located and functions to divide the buildings main elements: water and ice.
All areas combine a gross floor area of 12000 square meters. The park-like landscaped outdoor area offers a natural water pool as well as a relaxation area.
Schulitz incorporates innovative solutions for the energy and water supply in the facility. Contradictory needs of hot and cold elements are united by cross-linking the building services and thereby minimizing operational costs. Thus the waste heat from the ice rink’s cooling devices is used for heating water. An on-site well provides water for the swimming pools, the sanitary facilities and the ice preparation. The roof is equipped with a vast solar power system. Economical aspects were taken into consideration while planning the roof structure; the modular building method aligned with prefabrication kept building costs low.
The knowledge acquired during the planning of the ice rink in Wolfsburg and der ice rink in Cologne is being implemented in the new design for an ice rink in Bietigheim-Bissingen, close to Stuttgart, in Germany.
The entrance of the round ice rink is orientated to the south-east, defining a generous space used as an entrance area between the new ice rink, the old ice rink, and the neighboring swimming pool.
Due to the proximity to the old ice rink, both ice rinks are easily accessable. Furthermore, new energy efficient ice technology sutuated in the new ice rink can be used to in the old ice rink.
The ice rink is designed for a capacity of 4.500 spectators, which is required to comply with the German icehockey league standards.
Due to the round form of the ice rink, the ratio of the facade and the enclosed volume is minimized, thus preventing energy losses through the facade reducing overall energy consumption.
The design of the building‘s roof structure was optimized to reduce the steel consumption to a minimum with only approx. 65-70kg/m2.
The new multi-purpose hall sits in the presentday landscape of the Aviation Park. Despite the sizable building volume and the 5000 car parking spaces required, interference in the natural landscape was to be kept to an absolute minimum. The project was therefore integrated in ist setting as a freestanding building in a way that recalls Cracow’s traditional Kopiec landscape and conceals the car-parking spaces. The latter, along with the ancillary functions of the arena, were placed in an artificial hillock that the spectators walk up in order to reach the main entrances. From the entrances, one arrives in aspacious foyer that accommodates the evening box office, cloakrooms, and sanitary facilities. The foyer then tapers, like the stream of visitors, in the direction of the stands and the staircases. The asymmetry of the foyer is matched by the
asymmetrical character of the seating tiers for the public. This layout allows the stage to be sensibly positioned to suit the different uses, ranging from theatre productions to sporting events, and optimises the audience’s view of the stage.
In spite of a very narrow building site between the exiting swimming pools and the railway tracks, Schulitz Architects delivered a persuasive design regarding the functional requirements and the urban context.
Changing rooms and lavatories are situated next to the railway tracks, schielding the recreational areas from noise disturbance due to passing trains.
Two aspects determined the design of the ice-arena: an extremely tight budget and an even tighter schedule. The project was commissioned to our office in January while construction had to start in March at the end of the ice-hockey season and had to be finished in August ready for the new season.
The building meets the standards of the DEL, the premier German ice hockey league, and thus fulfils all requirements of 4500 seats and the corresponding catering and VIP-services.
Experience gained during the construction of the World Cup Soccer- arena in Hanover allowed us to meet all deadlines and the budget of € 7.5 million, using as much off-site prefabrication as possible, not just for the metal roof and facade structure but also for the concrete substructure and stands.
In the course of revamping its sports field, the MTV Gifhorn acquired three mobile stands that were no longer being used. A roof was to be designed for them – within the framework of an extremely limited budget. Despite these constraints, the clients insisted upon having architectural quality and wanted a building that
would provide an image for the association. A number of design proposals with light mem-brane roofs ultimately proved too expensive, so the final design is based on a simple additive principle in which 20 suspended and tied-back frames project above the small stands.
This new building combines highly heterogeneous user requirements in a compact form and links the existing forms of the landscape with the urban facilities. The landscape flows through the building, as it were, making it part of the topography. Through its “waist-lined” shape that is consistent with both the construction and the function (floor, ceiling and walls are convexly curved), the centrally placed foyer forms the starting point for the exciting internal circulation.
The volume of the building is reduced by the compressed layout of the three halls. The spectator stands in the halls extend into the ice training area, with the foyer placed above. In addition, the hall for ball games extends above the entire area of the central functional rooms and building services.
In conjunction with Leipzig’s application to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, Schulitz Architects designed a sports hall for athletics and judo for standard use and swimming / waterpolo during the 2012 Olympics.
The aim was to create an ideal form, both in plan and elevation, for a stadium in terms of optimised visibility. All the seats are within a radius of 90 metres from the centre of the pitch, i.e. not more than 150 metres from a corner flag. This means that the number of spectators on the more popular long sides of the stadium can be maximised. The result is a stand with a dynamically curved structure that is further strengthened by the line described by the roof, which is conceived according to the principle of the spoked wheel. This line, which lies above the tree tops, aims at achieving harmony with the forms of nature and thus preserves a characteristic of the former stadium. The old inclined flood light masts are replaced by a less obtrusive system that is integrated into the roof structure. By means of an inner transparent surface of UV- permeable ETFE foil the roof is intended to solve the critical problem of how to encourage the growth of the grass on the pitch. Up to now, this problem has led in other stadiums to replacing the lawn several times during one season or to other excessively technical measures such as moving the entire pitch out of the stadium or installing electrically operated UV lighting systems.
