Contract - January/February 2014 - 128

Client
Ghelamco Group
Location
Ghent, Belgium

Massive Design
"Pushing the idea of fabrication, the designers took the branding
of the soccer team and introduced progressive architecture that
engages the soccer fans. It looks like soccer heaven." JURY

By Cody Calamaio
Photography by
Saverio Lombardi Vallauri

When Massive Design came on board to design
the interiors of Ghelamco Arena in early 2013, the
project was already on a tight schedule in order
to host an opening celebration in the summer
that would be attended by royalty. The newly
constructed soccer stadium in Ghent, Belgium, built
by Bontinck Architecture and Engineering, needed a
softer feel in its interior for when the King and Queen
of Belgium made their last public appearance before
voluntarily abdicating the throne.
"We didn't have time for brainstorming and
over-analyzing-I had to come up with something
different and nice," says Przemyslaw "Mac" Stopa,
founder and chief architect of Massive Design. The
Polish interior planning and design firm, known for
creating stimulating and unconventional interiors,
was tasked with designing 200,000 square feet of
interior space-including multiple entrances, a main
lobby, ticket areas, bars, restaurants, and VIP
lounges-spread over four floors.
128

Working directly with the client, Ghelamco
Group, Stopa developed the design in about one
month. It focuses on two simple concepts: color and
form. "For me, the natural way of thinking was to do
design that connects the geometry of the soccer ball
and the colors of the local team," he says. The
stadium is home to the K.A.A. Gent soccer team, and
the design incorporates the team's signature color in
ambient blue light that reflects off the clean, mostly
white surfaces.
Stopa drew inspiration from the form of a
soccer ball, and incorporated it in various ways. The
most literal way is a large soccer ball light sculpture
that is suspended from a double-height ceiling in the
main lobby. Soccer balls also appear in abstract
three-dimensional graphics throughout the arena,
but other logos are kept muted to avoid interrupting
the stark color scheme. Stopa designed a series of
tessellating acoustic ceiling tiles-with a shape
reminiscent of the hexagonal pattern on a soccer
ball, only with softened corners-that are
suspended in cloud-like forms hovering over many
of the stadium's concourses. "I believe that in
architecture, we prefer to be surrounded by softer
forms because we feel closer to nature," he says.
Because ceiling heights vary under the stands,
more than 10,000 hanging ceiling tiles establish a
uniform height and create a sense of scale. They also
dampen noise in the vast, open areas, and conceal air
ducts. The surface above the tiles was kept raw, but
lit with blue uplights set on suspended tracks to
flood it with color. White LED downlights balance out

the hue, so the colors of the walkways below do not
appear to be distorted.
To further establish uniformity, Stopa made
the various sizes of support columns throughout
the massive stadium look consistent. Based on the
diameter of the widest column, Stopa designed
a shell made of Gyproc GypArt to fit around the
columns. The shells fan out and hug the ceiling,
echoing the muted hexagonal shapes of the
ceiling tiles. Blue LED rope lights wrap the tops of
the columns along the ceiling, providing a subtle pop
of color in areas such as the lobby, which are mostly
white. The floors are primarily paved with polished,
porcelain tiles in white, gray, and black, which at
times reflect the shapes of the molded forms
around them.
Due to the project's tight schedule, Stopa
was not able to gather input from the team's players
before the stadium was built. But he had no need to
worry: the local sports community has quickly
embraced the interior design, which takes an
elevated approach to the colors and shapes they
may have expected in a stadium. "The reaction has
been very nice," Stopa says. "The players have said
it's more like a modern hotel." c

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Contract - January/February 2014

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