AWD-Arena
Hanover, Germany
Schulitz + Partner Architekten

Composite roofing helps this stadium’s grass stay greener

© Schulitz + Partner

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Originally called the Niedersachsen, the AWD-Arena first opened in 1954. The city of Hanover, Germany, reconstructed and rechristened the building in pursuit of hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup Championship. But the city, and the two soccer teams that call the arena home, put a green twist on the 45,000-seat stadium.

Soccer has historically been an outdoor game played on natural lawn. Economic pressure is beginning to change this. Fans demand to sit as close as possible to the action but they also want to be protected from the sun and rain. These two requests create a paradox: as stadium roofs get larger to cover fans, less sunlight reaches grass on the playing field. In redesigning the AWD-Arena, Schulitz + Partner Architekten overcame this challenge with a unique roof system.

The stadium’s roof is made of two concentric sections: an opaque outer ring, comprised of a conventional steel structure and metal sheet decking, and a transparent inner ring of ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) foil stretched over a pre-stressed steel cable system. The two roof segments are comprised of two separate structural systems and were constructed independently of one another: the outer rings went up first, during the Bundesliga (the German Premiership games), while the inner rings, which are a tensegrity system suspended from an outer ring of masts, went up during the Bundesliga’s summer break.

By using ETFE on the inner rings of this dual roof system, the architect solved the sunlight problem. A transparent material, ETFE features an ultra-violet light transmission rate of 95 percent, thus allowing the arena’s grass playing field to grow naturally and avoiding the need to constantly replant it or move the entire field, as occurs in stadiums at Schalke, Germany, and Saporo, Japan. The AWD-Arena was the first stadium in which single-layer ETFE was implemented to encourage grass growth and, at nearly 110,000 square feet, it is the largest single-layer ETFE roof of its kind.

Formal name of Project:
AWD-Arena

Location:
Hanover, Germany

Gross square footage:
419,793 sq. ft.

Total project cost:
$82.8 million

Client:
Hannover 96 Arena GmbH + Co. KG

Architect:
Schulitz + Partner Architekten BDA
Viewegstr. 26
38102 Braunschweig, Germany
49-0-531-220700 tel.
49-0-531-2207032 fax
schulitz.de