Like a halo hovering gently above the landscape

Stadium of Quzhou Sports Park

published in sb magazine 2/2023

Quzhou Stadium is the centrepiece of a complex spanning almost 700,000 m² that will be known as Quzhou Sports Park in Zhejiang Province. Despite its impressive 30,000-seat capacity, Quzhou Stadium was designed to appear as a continuation of the ­surrounding landscape rather than an object standing out against it. MAD Architects was determined to build a stadium that would embed much of the technology that went into its production so that it can instead be open to the surrounding public space from nearly every angle. 

Quzhou is a historic city 400 kilometres southwest of Shanghai and surrounded by dense forests to the east and west, its sinuous exterior profile reflects the mountain ridge within distant view of the site while its landscape evokes those of planets imagined by visionary science fiction authors.