Cox Architecture and Collage Design also working on plans for vast sports complex in northern Indian state of Gujarat
A design team featuring BDP, Cox Architecture and Collage Design have unveiled plans for a huge sports campus in northern India which is set to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games.
New images of the 350-acre masterplan for the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave show three tennis showcourts, an indoor athletics arena, a training complex and an aquatics centre on the banks of the Sabarmati River in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
The new sports district will be built around the existing 132,000-seat Narendra Modi Stadium, the world’s largest stadium by capacity of any kind, which will host the 2030 games’ opening and closing ceremonies.
The masterplan centres on a green boulevard running from the Narendra Modi Stadium through the heart of the campus, with a series of riverside parks and plazas on its southern side and new sports venues to the north.
Closest to the stadium will be the new National Institute of Sports Excellence, a complex containing training halls, gyms, recovery equipment and medical faciltities for athletes and coaches.
Next along the boulevard will be the 12,000-seat Aquatics Centre, which will host swimming and diving events under an inverted arched roof with the building featuring an exposed exoskeleton supporting a double-glazed curtain wall.
In the middle of the campus will be the new tennis centre, the first of its scale in India, which will include a 10,000-seat centre court and two further show courts of 5,000 and 3,000 seats, along with eight match courts.
A the eastern end of the park will be the 18,000-seat indoor arena for gymnastics and basketball, featuring perforated aluminium cladding inspired by traditional jali screens often found in Indian and Islamic architecture.
Manisha Bhartia, urbanism director and head of BDP India, said the firm’s vision for the campus was to create a “distinctly Indian” destination for world sport.
She added: “By drawing on Amdavad’s architectural traditions and blending them with cutting-edge design and technology, we are designing-out single use, sporting venues that decay over time.
“We are shaping new, visually beautiful places that will host the world’s greatest sporting moments, but also remain an active, vibrant part of the city’s everyday life for decades to come.”
Alastair Richardson, director at Australian practice Cox Architecture, said the masterplan sought to build on Indian modernity and tradition to create a “truly unique design full of meaning and context that will make a lasting experience for global sporting events as well as a legacy that goes beyond such events”.
The 2030 event will be the second time India has hosted the Commonwealth Games, following the 2010 games in Delhi, and will mark the centenary of the sporting event.
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