WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has won a competition to design what is already being billed as “the greenest football stadium in the world”.

Built from wood, the 5000-seat structure will become the new home for Forest Green Rovers, a non-league club in western England, and the centrepiece of a Dhs467 million 40-hectare development combining sporting facilities and a green technology business park.

Dale Vince, founder of green energy company Ecotricity and chairman of Forest Green, said: “The really standout thing about this stadium is that it’s going to be almost entirely made of wood – the first time that will have been done anywhere in the world.

“The importance of wood is not only that it’s naturally occurring, it has very low embodied carbon – about as low as it gets for a building material.

“At Eco Park, we’ve started with a blank sheet of paper, and we’ll be going further than anyone has done before – this really will be the greenest football stadium in the world.”

Jim Heverin, Director at ZHA, said: “Embodying low carbon construction methods and operational processes, it will be the first all-timber football stadium with almost every element made of sustainably sourced timber – including its structure, roof cantilevers and louvered cladding.

“Forest Green Rovers’ new stadium and Eco Park aims to be carbon neutral or carbon negative, including measures such as the provision of on-site renewable energy generation. The buildings on the site, and their embodied energy, play a substantial role in achieving this ambitious target and demonstrate that sustainable architecture can be dynamic and beautiful.”