In a bid to create much-needed civic space in the urban environment of Lagos, Nigeria – one of the world’s fastest growing cities – this visionary design transforms the city’s Olusosun landfill.
The proposal, titled Bamboo Stadium, is the winner of Waste: Multipurpose Stadium, the latest open ideas architecture competition launched by architectural research initiative arch out loud. The sustainable design explores transforming the brownfield into a bamboo forest that would provide the raw material for building a future stadium and community gathering space onsite.
According to arch out loud, Lagos had, until recently, managed waste by relocating it to the 100-acre Olusosun landfill opened in 1992. However, due to the metropolis’ rapid population growth, the once-remote landfill has now become edged in by urban development and was shut down earlier this year and rezoned for redevelopment as a public park by the local government. The WASTE Competition sought to explore new redevelopment ideas and how stadium typology could serve the surrounding community.
Iulia Dorobanțu and Lucas Monnereau of ENSA Paris Belleville submitted the competition-winning Bamboo Stadium design, which proposes turning the landfill into a community meeting space fitted with multipurpose and adaptable modular structures that can cater to housing and public facilities such as a marketplace, school, cinema, sport courts, shops, restaurants, and workshops. The stadium would therefore not only serve as a platform for local and international football matches, but could also be used year-round by the community for other purposes.
“We propose an evolutive system — from a bamboo forest and stadium to a checker-board infinite pattern, composed of built blocks and yards, alternating between them,” the designers explained.
“Bamboo grown on the whole site will become the dominant building material: transformed in standardised arches that will bear the platforms and roof-structures, between yards and bridges. Patterned units make the construction process extremely efficient and cost-effective. The building act becomes possible insitu, offering the flexibility to change form, add or retain pieces on short notice. Looking forward, a local grow and support of the direct participation of dwellers in the design work can raise awareness and repel the soil, reduce carbon emissions or heat in the process.”
Images Iulia Dorobanțu and Lucas Monnereau via Inhabitat