Room with a view
Tammela Stadium in Tampere
Situation
Tammela Stadium is situated in the midst of residential buildings and is home to the football club Ilves in the Finnish town of Tampere. It was built in 1931, offers 5,000 seats on two different stands and is to be replaced by a new building.
New Tammela Stadium aims to unify the city structure in Tammela by reintroducing traditional closed block structure to an area that has become fragmented and incoherent. There is a green “courtyard” surrounded by a continuous low building mass housing small shops like in historic city blocks that have mostly been torn down. In the East, the block boarders Kaleva Boulevard in the same line with an old school building North of the stadium. On the Western side the block is retracted to form a small entrance square for the building and to leave enough space for the existing housing. This is how the existing row of trees can be preserved. This is important as there are only few green spaces in the area and every tree counts.
Buildings from all four sides
Surrounding the pitch with buildings from all four sides makes the block efficient and financially sustainable without making the stadium too massive in valuable historic setting. The City of Tampere aims to finance the public stadium project by selling the building right for the housing on top of the stadium. As the audience surrounds players from all four sides the bowl like space is spatially very intense. The heights of the crown like block’s tips have been carefully adapted to surrounding buildings. By pushing down the middle parts of the sides, the neighbors’ long views have been preserved and the school courtyard still gets direct sunlight. The home team of Tampere is called Ilves meaning lynx. You can see references to lynx’s ear tufts or the flight path of a football in the form of the block.
Architect
avanto architects ltd
kalevankatu 31 a
3 fi — 00100 helsinki
finland
Client
City of Tampere
Address
Kalevan puistotie 21
33500 Tampere
Finland
Aerial view
Thank you, Google!
Enter from all four corners
You may enter the stadium from all four corners. It is easy to find the entrances that are situated under the vaulted ceiling of building masses at the ends of the field. As required by UEFA, it is possible to arrange a separate entrance and stand for a visitor team. The most public functions, the restaurant and the gym, have been placed in the block corners so that they are easy to reach. The idea is to open the building for the local residents as well. All spaces are flexible and can be used by different users during different times of the day so that the use ratio of spaces can be raised. The hybrid block housing various functions is active 24/7.
The field is oriented North-South and the main stand with TV cameras is on the West side, according to UEFA instructions. As the bridge like buildings on reinforced concrete arcs on the short ends need no columns, even the end stands have unobstructed views to the field. The stands can temporarily be extended to fill the highest UEFA category 4.
Living in a stadium
As the building volume is relatively thick, many different types of housing can be built. The proposed student flats counterbalance the demographic structure of the area with mostly elderly people. Special emphases was put to the social sustainability of the project. The sense of community is created by introducing various common spaces like green conservatories and saunas with extensive roof terraces. The generous side-corridor provides extra space for storing a bicycle, urban gardening or even watching a match inside the stadium with your neighbors. The uppermost floor with curved roof houses loft apartments with varying ceiling height.
Ground plans
Elevations + Sections
