A Qatar and Australia-led consortium has won a competition to design a FIFA/Olympic-standard stadium and sports village in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Work on the stadium project, which is shaped like a coffee bean, the main source of income in Ethiopia, is scheduled to begin in 2014.
Doha-based Australian firm, DESIGNSPORT, and Australian LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary worked on the project in collaboration with local Ethiopian architects JDAW.
The facade material that wraps around the stadium was similarly inspired by Ethiopian culture, modelled on the Massob, an Ethiopian communal serving basket made from woven grass, the consortium said in a statement.
It did not give a value for the contract.
The development is the largest sporting infrastructure project in Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa and its fastest growing economy.
The new facility, set on a 60-hectare site, will consist of a 60,000-seat stadium, an athletics track, aquatic centre, residential village, sports halls and arenas, retail and commercial zones as well as the headquarters of the Federal Sport Commission.
Samantha Cotterell, CEO of DESIGNSPORT, said: "The brief was to design a centre that would revitalise sport in Ethiopia. The result is a sports venue which can be used by all.
"It is for community use at a grass roots level right through to providing a high performance training centre for elite athletes and a location for major international sporting events."
Cotterell has worked as a senior overlay design consultant on all of Qatar's major sporting events including heading up overlay design for sporting venues for the Doha 2006 Asian Games Organising Committee and acting as Senior Technical Design Consultant for the Doha 2020 Olympic Bid Committee.
DESIGNSPORT and LAVA designed the Doha tennis lounge and the Sodra Future Tennis Centre.
Business.com
Follow us on our social media channels:
@ILQlive
@ILQlive
@ILoveQtr
ILoveQatar
