Athletics and Rugby Stadium (Olympic Games 2020)

Athletics and Rugby Stadium (Olympic Games 2020)
Tokyo, Japan

Status: Competition
Date: 2012
Client: Japan Sports Council
Gross floor area: 290.000 m2 / 80.000 Spect.

Architect:
Antonio González Cordón
Antonio G. Liñán

Team:
Esteban Valencia
Víctor Silveira

STRUCTURAL – SERVICES ENGINEER:
Fernando Medina 

The Stadium is creatively designed to have a worldwide unique suspending retractable roof combining multiple functions of roof, sightseeing and urban landscape.

From an architectural point of view, the proposal is based on providing an excellent meeting and researching point for the city, where it is possible to experience mass spectacles within a flexible space. In order to achieve that, the new Stadium requires an specific architecture according to the importance of the planned international events, and taking into account the relevance and coherence of the Place where it is located. On that sense, the location of the New Stadium avoids a new relation with the adjacent areas, in order to provide an urban relation as well as preserving the experience of the public realm that surrounds them.

The new building is thought as an hybrid building, a kind of Stadium that could provide services either inside the build, either outside of its premises through the use of new technologies.
The roof and facade has been conceived as a geodesic dome, a partial-spherical  lattice shell based on a network of great circles (geodesics) on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure.

Hinged at the structure’s gutters, the roof proposed fully close and open by the mechanics of a rack and pinion system or a push/pull drive system. Comparable to the benefits of a large and heavy retractable roof, this roof system offer players year long usage, protection from inclement weather when needed, and the feeling of an outdoor environment.