Taken from the speech by Alastair Cox (ESTC Technical Director) at the Sport&Impianti FORUM on 19 February 2025 at Myplant & Garden 2025.

In a poor neighbourhood of the capital, a facility built with poor materials and simple but effective architecture that expresses the desire to also be an instrument of social dialogue. The sports centre, inaugurated last November, is named after a world champion boxer who died prematurely in 2017.

The Energizer Park in St. Louis is an example of integrating the sports facility into an urban regeneration plan, within a broader concept of openness to the city and sustainable living.

The Philips Stadion, in its evolution, reflects the architectural diversity of Eindhoven, and has transformed almost in parallel with the city, becoming today a contemporary structure with a well-defined technological soul, and perfectly integrated in what is a conurbation with just over 200,000 inhabitants. Enriched by choices increasingly oriented towards technological optimisation, such as the installation of a sound and speaker system specifically designed for this facility, and the recent introduction of the new lighting system for the grass growth of the playing field, the PSV stadium, like Eindhoven, is a virtuous example in the relationship between space and architecture.

At the end of a 10-year process, the renovated Estadio Santiago Bernabéu became a reality with the start of the 2024/25 football season.

Returning to talk, as we do every year, about grass in sport, we tried to take stock of the ‘focuses’ that are of most interest, with a view to a future that awaits a change of pace about the environment. We therefore focused on football, taking advantage of Tsport’s experience with the training events organised over the past year in many different stadiums and training centres.

Sustainable Designing Special Report – 9. An example of an improved technical bid, submitted in the tender, oriented towards efficiency and sustainability.

Sustainable Designing Special Report – 7. Large sports facilities designed in the USA have been among the first to chase the goals of ‘sustainability’, thanks also to the precise reference given by the LEED certification that assigns a score for each of the factors involved in the design and management of the building.

Sustainable Design Special Report – 8. The exemplary cases of two projects by the international firm Zaha Hadid Architects: the reconstruction of the stadium in Aarhus, Denmark, and the construction of the new Forest Green Rovers FC stadium in England.

Sustainable Designing Special Report – 5. As part of an increasingly evident effort to stimulate a conscious design of the new generation of stadiums, FIFA (football’s highest international body) has dedicated an important part precisely to sustainability within the recent 2023 edition of its ‘Football Stadium Guidelines’.