A rendering of stadium to be constructed with made-in-China containers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. (Photo/China News Service)
(ECNS)-- A stadium made of shipping containers from China will be constructed for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The Ras Abu Aboud Stadium designed by Madrid-based firm Fenwick Iribarren (FIA), together with Schlaich Bergermann Partners and Hilson Moran, will be the first ever demountable, transportable and reusable stadium in the world.
The 40,000-seat stadium, one of 12 new venues for the 2022 World Cup, will cover 450,000 square meters and be built with 990 container modules provided by the Yangzhou base of China International Marine Containers (CIMC).
CIMC, headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, said the prototype containers have been manufactured and large-scale mass production will start in July, with the first batch to be delivered in October.
Wang Fei, project manager, said the prototype container is 6 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and high, close to the size and appearance of standard containers.
According to plan, fabrication of all containers will be complete by April 2019 and the project will finish in June 2020.
Wang said the final building process will look like playing with toy bricks using a steel structure as frame with all containers assembled, decorated and painted.
The use of modified shipping containers as modular building blocks will reduce the construction time by three years, save materials and reduce emissions, according to Wang. In future, the stadiums can be disassembled and reused in other places to host matches, or transformed into affordable houses and temporary shelters.
Zhao Youshan, general manager of the CIMC Yangzhou base, said the company began exporting modular buildings in 2005 with projects spread all over the world, including the modular container for the Antarctic scientific research station of Brazil.
Shortly before the opening of the World Cup in Russia, Qatar World Cup Organizing Committee officials checked the prototypes and said they were very satisfied with the products, said Zhao.
