MTK Stadium
1053-AZP-BUD.HU-2014
Architects: AZPML, Sporaarchitects
Status: Competition (2014)
Visualizer: Studio
Scale: Large
Types: Sport, Stadium

Our proposal for the new MTK Stadium is aimed to provide adequate FIFA compliant facilities for the team, while producing also an urban infrastructure for the city of Budapest, which will be able to work in a variety of functions, providing a cover for urban activities surrounding the stadium. Rather than proposing extravagant forms to gain attention, we believe that the best branding for MTK will be to engage with the citizens, to avoid another blank wall stadium that kills the street life around by presenting no active surfaces.

Our proposal is to mirror the stadium canopy towards the outside in order to produce a covered public space all around the stadium, a space where different activities could happen, producing an effective interface between the stadium and the public space: markets, street music, marketing events, public art shows … the exterior canopy of the stadium will cover the area adjacent to the stadium in order to produce a public space which the citizens can use permanently to enliven the surrounding of the stadium at all times, not just during the matches.

The canopy will cantilever from the building perimeter on the East and West sides, forming a covered public space around the stadium, much like the old loggias around cathedrals or public buildings. The canopy will hold an undulating fabric surface surrounding the stadium, which will serve as a retroprojection surface for images or color tones which will represent the colours of MTK or of the visiting teams, amongst other possibilities. The impression will be like a huge, undulating flag wrapping around the stadium and hovering above the public space below.

The pitch has been located at -3m in order to make the stadium lower and provide a human scale to the spaces surrounding the stadium. Unlike other stadiums, which usually play with a monumental scale, the MTK stadium will be a human-scaled space, much like the canopy of many other urban buildings. The canopy edge will be hanging only 3.5m above grade level, although internally, the loggia space will be around 6m high.

Given the low levels of the pitch and the stands, on the east side, we are allowing the Budapest citizen to walk up one level and be able to see the pitch from above the seating areas, from the vantage points of the restaurant and the museum, to further intensify the relationship between the stadium and the city.

Given the lack of space in the plan, we have concentrated most of the seats along the east and west sides but we have kept two balconies along the North and South edges of the pitch in order to maintain the feeling of an arena where spectators are surrounding the pitch from every side. This will contribute decisively to the atmosphere of the game.

Team: AZPML (Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno, Guillermo Fernandez-Abascal, Manuel Eijo, Donghua Chen, Lidia Martinez, sporaarchitects (Adam Hatvani, Tibor Dékány, Dávid Tarcali, Bence Pásztor, Boldizsár Medvey, Balázs Csapó, Nóra Németh, Tibor Varga, Blanka Kiss, Zoltán Kalászi) | Post date: 15/12/2014 | Views: 3.744