Times Fantasy Football - The Volcano Stadium

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The Volcano Stadium

Early next year Mexico’s Club Deportivo Guadalajara will be playing football in a brand new stadium which has been modelled on, of all things, a volcano. French architects Massaud decided, along with help from the Mexican FA, that they should highlight the El Templo Mayor’s ecological design by disguising it as a lava-spewing hill. How can that be done? First of all, the lower half of the stadium itself will be surrounded by an incline of grass, resulting in the pitch itself sitting within what seems to be an artificial hill.

The roof of the stadium, consisting of white fabric stretched over a steel frame, will form the cloud of smoke hovering above the volcano with relatively narrow column supports ensuring the cloud never gets too close. This roof will also serve as a gigantic projection screen, home to large-scale advertisements directed towards the picnicing families outside on the hill. The final part of the volcanic equation will be the seats, the majority of which will obviously be lava-red.

The Volcano Stadium will be completed in January 2009. Read more about the stadium at the architects’ website here.