Saturday, December 08, 2007

Stadiums for the community??

Just a thought came to my mind as I read through a sports news article titled "Seedorf's SOS for soccer". In the article, Seedorf, a famous soccer player for Netherlands who was born in S. Africa, spoke of solving the issues of sports violence and players' welfare through the design of stadiums. As of now, there are increasing incidents of violence from the spectators stands and in some cases, the police are the ones getting hurt.

Here's a quote from him,
<<
At Milan's Champions League 1-1 draw at Benfica's ultra-modern Stadium of Light last week, Seedorf saw where Italy had gone wrong and that new grounds attract calmer fans.

'In Lisbon, it was a great stadium, very public-friendly. Simple things make a difference,' he said. 'That's what we need in Italy. We need to build new stadiums. Outside of Italy, people are addressing these issues.' >> published 07 dec 2007, The Electric New Paper, Sports


image from www.wayfaring.info/tag/soccer/


image from www.nytimes.com

It's an interesting observation and I just want to point this out, given the recent hype about the sports hub designs in Singapore. Maybe we can explore new ways, new typologies of looking at sporting facilities' designs.

What are the implications of future sports arenas, facilities? Can stadiums do more for the community? What new architecture discourses can be derived by the changing sporting experience?