Sports Arena Development: Scalability Impact on Urban Fabric Integration

摘要

This paper examines the evolution of arenas and its integration in the urban fabric. Arenas have always been an important building type that has been used since ancient times. The integration of arenas into the urban fabric has become a recent issue with the increase interest for hosting Mega Sporting Events. Mega Sporting Events usually require large structures that sometime are poorly integrated with its surroundings. The focus of this study is to examine the history of sports arenas and its integration into the urban fabric with focus on stadium scalability. In this study, the method used to examine arena development and integration is based on a historical qualitative method to examine the timeline of arena development and impact factors, in addition to the comparison of two case studies: Khalifa International Stadium and Qatar Foundation Stadium. The paper concludes that stadium scalability is impacted by urban form factors such as land uses, density, accessibility and connectivity. These factors impact the decision to scale down or up a stadium for better urban integrations. It also proposes further research questions that can base this study as a critical background study of arena development.