Stade De Stadium: France

The Stade de France is the largest sports stadium in France with an 80,000 capacity. Instigated by France’s hosting of the last soccer World Cup of the 20th century in 1998, the role of the stadium is to be the home of France’s major sporting events in football, rugby and athletics.

Stadium Site

The structure, which was built on a site previously occupied by a derelict gasworks in the northern Paris suburb of St. Denis, was built in less than three years by a public/private sector partnership, at a cost of around £260 million ($364 million).

Construction of the stadium started at the beginning of May 1995 and was completed on November 30th 1997. At its peak, 1,500 people worked on the construction.

Design

Designed by four architects from two firms: Michel Macary and Aymeric Zublena; and Michel Regembal and Claude Costantini, the Stade de France is the biggest mobile, transformable stadium in the world. The lowest grandstand, with a capacity of 25,000 seats can be pulled back 15m (rolling on a cushion of air, and steel and Teflon rollers).

The system enables the spectator to be as close as possible to the particular event optimising visibility. The 80,000-seat arena was designed to provide perfect visibility, with its elliptical form enabling sightlines to converge.

Elliptical Roof

The roof is suspended by 18 steel pillars at a height of 45m (148.5ft) above the ground and is covered with 50,000m² of PVC. Laminated glass made with Saflex plastic interlayer was used to help build this elliptical shaped structure, adding natural light while solving acoustical, thermal and other architectural design challenges.

With a total surface of more than 6 hectares and weighing 13,000t - as much as the Eiffel Tower - the roof is suspended above the ground by 18 steel needles, the elliptical roof houses all the lighting and acoustical functions (550 projectors, 36 sound walls and 454 floodlights).

Prefabricated cable guys hold up the roof of the Stade de France. The guys connect the metal framework to the load-bearing beams. Each pre-stressed guy is made up of several dozen parallel strands. To meet the safety and strength specifications, the technology of ’separate wire anchors’ for anchoring the strands had to be modified with a steel sleeve permanently clamped on the galvanised strand by extruding it through a die.

The lightly tinted glazing of the roof allows light to pass through while sheltering the spectators. Saflex plastic interlayer was used because it is tough and resilient polyvinyl butyral (PVB).

Saflex is sandwiched between two or more panes of glass and then permanently bonded together under heat and pressure. It was conceived that only glass could open the stadium to the city, allowing the infiltration of natural light. Laminated glass made with Saflex was chosen to help achieve the aesthetic look desired while providing several important benefits. With the glass made with a translucent white interlayer in the roofing structure, light is able to shine onto the field, minimising glare and sharp contrasts between shaded and lighted zones. Laminated glass also enables uniform growth of the stadium’s grass surface, allowing all areas equal exposure to sunshine.

Athletics Track

A pitch surrounded by an athletics track distances the spectator from the football action. So at the Stade, the lowest of the three tiers of seating are retractable units that cover the track.

The Stade de France is the largest modifiable Olympic stadium in the world. It can be transformed from a soccer stadium into an Olympic-sized arena in less than a week. The retractable lower stands holds 25,000 and can be shifted 15m underneath the middle stands.

The athletics track was the final element to be added to the stadium during April 1999. The first step was the preparation of the black coating for the definitive surface to ensure a perfect planimetry and a 0.5% to 0.8% slope for water flow.

Pushing back the lower stand 15m allows a view of the track. This technical characteristic of the stadium highlights its specificity to host any kind of sports and its capacity to harmoniously welcome several sports.

The Sportflex surface was prefabricated and was carried to the stadium in bobbins. Juggling with bad weather, the Mondo company eventually glued it on the black coating.

Stands

The stands are divided into ten separate units, each weighing 700t. For athletics meetings only, the seats on the very top of the lower stands are lost in the transformation process. The lower stands retains 20,000 places, permitting spectators to always remain as close as possible to the action.

This one-of-a-kind procedure enables the Stade de France to be converted into an Olympic stadium that holds 75,000 people, without altering spectator visibility during soccer and rugby matches. This technique also makes it possible to accommodate a further 25,000 on the lawn for big concerts - pushing the Stade de France theoretical maximum capacity to 100,000 spectators.

The middle stands can accommodate 30,000 people. To reach these stands you must take one of the 22 gateways. The upper grandstands seat 25,000 and are accessed by a monumental stairway. In fact, even the spectators furthest away are really only 85m from the action.

Field

Located 11m below the ‘parvis’, the field has a surface area of 9,000m². The closest spectators are 15m away. Coated with a special protector, the field is also used for seating purposes for big concerts.

Sowed in July 1996, the field was transplanted (in square metre blocks) into the stadium in September 1997. Close to a billion seeds were used to breed the field. It can resist up to 16 hours of use a week.

Hydro Pratt designed and built the Robix turf-laying machine specially for the laying of the turf at the Stade de France.

Solvay and PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) both have been key-players in providing underground insulation. A PVC subsoil membrane of 30,000m² was supplied by Alkor Draka, a subsidiary of Solvay, and manufactured in its plant in San Celoni (Spain).

The membrane has been placed 1m underground, and effectively insulates the turf and the track from any unpleasant odours that might emanate from the subsoil of the former industrial site on which the stadium has been built.

Consortium Stade De France

Consortium Stade de France’s mission was to work with the architects to build and finance the project. Now that it is built, the consortium’s role is to sell entertainment linked with the stadium, which involves three main activities: rentals to sporting events organisers, the marketing of advertising areas and the rental of luxury products to companies for their public relations events or for employee motivation purpose.

Additional revenue is generated by restaurants, shops, organisation of congress, seminars and 6000 parking spaces.