Aidia Studio lifts lightweight metal roof over Mexican grandstand
International design practice Aidia Studio has revitalised a sports complex in Oaxaca, Mexico, by constructing a new grandstand and locker room for a soccer field.
The 14-acre Deportivo Zanatepec was completed for a federal Secretariat of Agrarian, Land, and Urban Development (SEDATU) project in the municipality of Santo Domingo Zanatepec in Mexico's Tehuantepec Isthmus.
The design was informed by the context, incorporating earth tones into the concrete, filling the site with mango trees, and highlighting and replicating the angles of the Sierra Madre de Chiapa, the mountain range located west of the site.
"[We intended to] marry the earthy tones of the land, the lush colours of the fruit tree plantations and the inspiring mountainous backdrop with an architecture evoking site-specificity and to strike a balance between mass and lightness," Aidia Studio told Dezeen.
Adjacent to existing professional and practice soccer fields used by a local league, Aidia Studio constructed a 6,973-square metre (75,056-square foot) building with a heavy, pigmented concrete base and a lightweight metal shade structure.
Within the base, the ground floor includes two team locker rooms with direct access to the field, public restrooms, and concession areas. The concrete features multiple finishes: horizontal board-formed lines, stamped parquet blocks, and smooth benches.
A large portico runs along the east side of the ground floor, connecting service areas with pivoting doors and shading visitors with lattices made of parota wood slats.
Symmetrical sets of internal stairs and external ramps lead up to the grandstand that seats 400 spectators under a modular metal roof made of hyperbolic paraboloids that create design simplicity and formal expression.
"This geometric configuration provides rigidity and lightness at the same time, providing unobstructed views towards the soccer field in front and the basketball court in the back," the team said.
"Our form finding process in this and other projects aims to marry aesthetics with performance, a continuation of the modernist project with today's digital tools that allow us to iterate and optimize design options."
The Tehuantepec Isthmus is one of the most intense seismic regions in Mexico, so the team took seismic resilience into the design of the roof with triangular-shaped trusses and diagonal bracing that allows "the roof reads as effortlessly hovering over the stand".
White ironwork railings and gates correspond with the white roof structure, providing a light detail to juxtapose the heavy concrete.
In addition to the grandstand building, Aidia Studio added an access plaza, a 400-metre athletics track around the field, a one-kilometre perimeter running path, children's play areas, and designated areas for calisthenic workouts.
Also in Oaxaca, Aidia Studio designed a community centre with a series of vaulted roofs and a diaphanous concrete block screen.
Following a similar parti for a concrete grandstand with a large awning structure, Centro de Colaboración Arquitectónica designed a baseball stadium in Jálpa de Mendez, but swapped the lightweight metal structure for monumental concrete umbrellas.
SEDATU has sponsored many community-oriented buildings throughout Mexico, including a number of buildings in northern and southern border towns by Colectivo C733, a multi-disciplinary studio that includes Mexican architect Gabriela Carillo.
The photography is courtesy of Aidia Studio.
Project credits:
Architects: AIDIA STUDIO
Project directors: Rolando Rodriguez-Leal, Natalia Wrzask
Lead architect: Jose Luis Mulás
Project team: Nitze Magaña, Ernesto Pinto, Aranzazu Sánchez, Cecilia Simón, Rodrigo Wulf
Structural Engineering: Project & Calc
Client: SEDATU
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