The English Football League has approved proposals by Forest Green Rovers to move into the 5,000-seat all-timber football stadium designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
When completed, Ecopark Stadium will become the new home of Forest Green Rovers Football Club with important new facilities for its local community.
With the team’s community and supporters at its core, fans will be as close as five metres from the pitch. The stadium’s continuous spectator bowl will maximise matchday atmosphere and incorporate the club’s future growth.
Establishing a holistic vision for the site, Ecopark Stadium will embody low carbon construction methods and operational processes, and will be the first all-wood football stadium – with almost every element made of sustainably sourced timber. As a building material, laminated timber is highly durable, safe and recyclable.
Dale Vince, chairman of the club, explained to Sky Sports TV: “From an environment point of view, 75% of the carbon footprint of all stadia in their entire lifetime comes from the materials they’re made from. It’s not about the energy used to run them, it’s embedded on day one. We’ll have the lowest carbon footprint of any stadium anywhere in the world since the Romans invested concrete.”
Forest Green Rovers’ Ecopark Stadium aims to be carbon neutral (or even carbon negative with the provision of on-site renewable energy generation), demonstrating that sustainable architecture can be dynamic and beautiful.
Source: Zaha Hadid Architects
