Mbombela Stadium

Mbombela Stadium
The Giraffe Stadium
Location	Nelspruit
Coordinates	25°27′40″S 30°55′44″E / 25.461°S 30.929°ECoordinates: 25°27′40″S 30°55′44″E / 25.461°S 30.929°E
Broke ground	February 2007
Owner	Mbombela Local Municipality
Operator	Platinum Sport
Surface	Rye grass &Desso GrassMaster
Construction cost	R1.05 billion; (USD $ 140 million)
Architect	R&L Architects
Capacity	43,589
Tenants
	not yet finalized

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Mbombela Stadium is a newly built all seater 43,500-seat stadium and is one of the ten venues for the FIFA World Cup 2010. It is located on open land six kilometers west of Nelspruit, South Africa, with the stadium as the centrepiece of a proposed wider sports precinct with athletics and cricket as well as other sporting codes.

The R1,050-million sports facility was ready for use well ahead of the June 2010 World Cup kickoff and has been made possible through taxpayer funding.

The multi-purpose stadium, which is expected to host key soccer and rugby matches, will also be equipped with conference facilities.

[edit] Construction

Construction commenced in February 2007 and was completed in Nov 2009. The Construction contract was awarded to a South African–French consortium of Basil Read Construction and Bouygues Construction. The structure is founded on 1,500 piles on a 10m structural grid. Each giraffe sits on 18 piles on the 30m major structural bay. The 10m span seating beams are pre-stressed and most of the 3,170 units were pre-cast on site. The project was subjected to numerous wild cat strike and with the 5th and final strike all main contract labourers were dismissed.^[2] All subsequent work was performed by sub-contractors. During a freak storm in Jan 2009 a tower crane blew over and cut through the partially completed roof. The site was unoccupied at the time and there were no injuries.^[3] The construction required A total of 5.5million manhours to complete. The site was exceptionally safe with the worst injury being a broken ankle. A record was set of 2.4million consecutive injury free hours.

[edit] Stadium

Most seats are covered by a cantilever roof. The signature feature of the stadium are the 18 roof supports that resemble giraffes. The stadium is close to the Kruger National Park and the stadium reflects this inter-relation. Visitors to this World Cup venue will be able to couple this with a visit to the game reserve.

[edit] Design

The bowl design aimed to put every seat as close as practical to the field action and maintain excellent sightlines over the heads of spectators. It is the most compact arena of all 2010 venues. The seats are patterned with zebra stripes. The seating is divided into 3 tiers with 21,000 lower tier, 3,500 middle tier and 19,000 on the upper tier. The upper tier is accessed by 8 wide ramps located on the corners. The ramps accommodates small delivery vehicles. The middle tier which is accessed by elevators has premium seating with a VIP lounge, Restaurant, Club lounges and 25 private boxes

[edit] Pitch

The pitch is sized for Rugby 100x70m and Soccer 105x68m and floodlit to 2,200 lux to meet FIFA requirements. The stadium will be used intensely for training and matches. The cool season Rye grass pitch grown from seed is reinforced with Desso GrassMaster artificial turf fibres, which anchor the field into a stable and a level grass surface.

[edit] Roof

The 1,450 tonne roof covers an area of 22,500 square metres and covers 94% of the seats. The roof is 35m above the pitch half of which is translucent to maximise sunlight to the pitch and to lighten the seating bowl. The roof floats free from the top of the seating bowl with a 6m gap to provide ventilation in the hot climate and also to provide views to the surrounding hills from the seating bowl. The structure is a propped cantilever on a 30m module with the steel towers for the tension rods doubling as symbolic giraffe necks. The floor of the service catwalk is 100mm thick concrete as ballast to resist wind uplift.

[edit] 2010 World Cup

Date	Time (UTC+2)	Team #1	Res.	Team #2	Round	Attendance
2010-06-16	13.30	Honduras	vs	Chile	Group H	–
2010-06-20	16.00	Italy	vs	New Zealand	Group F	–
2010-06-23	20.30	Australia	vs	Serbia	Group D	–
2010-06-25	16.00	Korea DPR	vs	Cote d'Ivoire	Group G	–