The new stadium design for the AlArabi Club has won the ‘Best Future Stadium Design’ at the World Stadium Congress. The stadium was designed to FIFA World Cup and UEFA standards and will have 30,000 (shaded) seats.
The building above street level almost floats above the ground floor, clearly separating the activities taking place within it. The stadium is closed from all sides of the pitch. The modern design of the stadium’s facade incorporates a white continuous block unifying the wall and roof as one element. This element wraps around the tiers as tightly as possible and incorporates the symbol of the club. The wheat leaves on the logo were chosen as the symbol for the new era in the life of the Al-Arabi Sports Club as they mean growth and prosperity. The pattern is more open at concourse level, as it is a more public area, hence allowing for light and ventilation into the bowl, while being more closed at the top (where the sports halls are) until it fades into the solid form of the curved roof. [Source]
The stadium was designed by the local architectural and engineering firm Pace who are behind a number of cool projects in Kuwait. The stadium will replace the current Sabah Al-Salem Stadium but I wasn’t able to find out any information on when it would be completed by.
11 replies on “Kuwait wins World Stadium Congress award for the new Sabah Al-Salem Stadium”
Beautiful design, hopefully it will never be built. Having a stadium inside a residential area is the dumbest thing you can do in urban planning.
You should actually be hoping that this would get built since there is already a stadium there and this one will be replacing that old one. PACE are a legit firm so you can expect them to have studied the area, the traffic flow, the parking situation. So you should trust they would try and solve all the problems the best they can. They probably already have roadwork plans for the surrounding area to try and ease the congestion during games.
For every major architectural projects, there should be multiple entries and multiple exits;
I fret for the situation Avenues is in;
Nothing about them being “legit” or not. Stadiums are not meant to be in residential areas. What are they going to do, turn the traffic light there into a roundabout? Build bridges over the houses? I’m pretty sure the residents there already suffer enough from game match days, and now not only the capacity will increase, but they have to tolerate a few years of noise and construction and heavy machinery on already a small patch of roads
Do you think they just put a blindfold on and pointed on a random area to build the stadium on? With such a project they know what’s they’re doing and its been all thought-out, or did you seriously think everyone is short-sighted?
No they did not put a blindfold and pointed on a random area, because the stadium is already there and has been there since 1977, which at that time Mansouriya was probably considered barren and far away. Now it’s a highly dense residential area. New stadiums are always build outside the city because of all the traffic and noise it generates, and the large area and infrastructure it needs. Older stadiums are either demolished, moved to a new area, or the surrounding plots are BOUGHT, and in Kuwait good luck with convincing the surrounding tenants to give up their homes. They will probably demand over the market values which will only increase the cost of this project. So yeah “such a project” looks cute on paper and 2030 2035 2040 vision etc. etc. but realistically does not makes sense at all. But perhaps enlighten us on how you have concluded that “it’s all been thought-out”, seems like you have insider information or something.
No it wasn’t considered barren and far away, by then it was in the middle of a growing urban area.
Its really nice to see all of these cool developments taking place in Kuwait! And being completed in such a short time too.
Wait for comments like “why do we need this, Kuwait should invest in things like blah blah traffic, blah blah roads blah blah environment something something” lol.
Another stadium that will end up being abandoned like Jaber Al Ahmad Stadium. It’s not like we have so many international events, tearing down the ice skating rink for a new concert hall? No one comes to Kuwait for tourism, why can’t they just renew Entertainment City and stop rebuilding things we don’t need.
Al Arabi are actually pretty active, so the stadium wouldn’t be “abandoned”
I find it ironic that a stadium is getting made when Kuwait no longer needs to co-host the 2022 World Cup.