The first ever football stadium to be made out of wood has been commissioned to be built by London based Zaha Hadid Architects.
Zaha Hadid saw off competition from 50 other entries, with the 5,000 seat space to be made entirely from wood.
The “green” stadium will be home to Forest Green Rovers FC, which plays in the National League.
It will not only be made entirely of wood, but it will also be powered by sustainable energy sources.
The site is set to feature an undulating bowl, made from slats of timber, as the position of every seat will be calculated to provide supporters with unrestricted views of the pitch.
The stadium will be the centrepiece of a £100 million EcoPark development by green energy specialist Ecotricity across 100 acres beside junction 13 of the M5 in Gloucestershire.
Forest Green Rovers chairman and founder of Ecotricity, Dale Vince, commented: “Zaha Hadid have built some fantastic sport stadia around the world, including one at the Olympic Park in London; they’ve designed one of the five stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar, and now they’ve designed one for Forest Green.
“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 using wood is not only that it’s a naturally occurring material, it has very low carbon content, about as low as it gets for a building material. It’s why our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world.”
Director at ZHA, Jim Heverin, said. “With the team’s community and supporters at its core, fans will be as close as five meters from the pitch and every seat has been calculated to provide unrestricted sight lines to the entire field of play.”
