Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility by WTA Architecture and Design Studio is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2024 Golden A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design Competition Category.
GoldArchitecture· 2024
Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility
by WTA Architecture and Design Studio
Client: WTA Architecture and Design Studio
Golden A' Design Award Winner in Architecture Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #154128The Design
About Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility
This is an open stadium that is an integral part of the community. A stadium that would extend the adjacent park and connect with the university. The southern end of the stadium incorporates a sloping lawn where people could walk up or have picnics and leads to an amphitheater with a magnificent backdrop. This expression of social architecture creates a barrier free stadium that is accessible to everyone. This is both a stadium and a park, a space that does not discriminate. It is social infrastructure that helps bond the community. It is a stadium for the people.
The Recognition
About the Golden A' Design Award
Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility is a Golden A' Design Award winner, an immensely prestigious recognition granted to first-rate, marvelous, and outstanding designs. Golden winners are exceedingly innovative, visionary, and glamorously dazzling creations that reflect the prodigy, wisdom, and prowess of their designers. Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility is expected to be a highly praised, trendsetting, and monumental invention that delivers unprecedented value. This Golden A' Design Award-winning design is a spectacular, respected project that highly benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility creates intense feelings of desire, evokes passion, encourages creativity, and fascinates us.
Where to Get It
Award-Winning Social Architecture and Design Services
We create transformative spaces that connect communities and enhance well-being. Our 120-designer studio brings 15 years of expertise across residential, commercial, institutional, and public projects. From intimate homes to grand stadiums, we design with people at the center, delivering innovative solutions that foster interaction and progress.
Discuss Your ProjectInterviews
Design Interview
What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
We wanted to create a truly open public stadium that would allow free and unrestricted access.
What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
We wanted to ensure that the project becomes a vital part of the community.
What are your future plans for this award winning design?
We hope to develop this idea further with our next projects.
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to creating a barrier-free stadium at Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility challenges traditional stadium design - could you elaborate on how this social architecture concept evolved from initial vision to final implementation?
Social Architecture is the overall design agenda pushed by our studio. It began with the Book Stop Project 8 years ago and we have managed to develop and implement its various principles in our project. The very idea for the Marcos Stadium came from initial sketches we were doing of the bay sections. We realized that if we just kept these sections as the facade we would be able to create an open ended stadium that is open to all. To develop this further, we linked it with the Rizal Park in front and removed the road separating the stadium from the adjoining Mariano Marcos State University, allowing the students to access the stadium feely.
The integration of local Binakol patterns in Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility's exterior design creates a striking visual identity - what inspired this fusion of traditional cultural elements with modern architectural principles?
We wanted to reduce the visual scale of the stadium and allow people to see the pattern without seeing the whole building. While visiting the markets we noticed the prevalence of the inabel fabrics and the binakol patterns. The incorporation of this pattern with its traditional intent of breaking up solid colors allowed us to create a more human scale for the stadium exterior.
The southern end of Ferdinand E Marcos Stadium Sports Facility incorporates a unique sloping lawn and amphitheater - how does this design element contribute to your vision of creating a truly public space that serves multiple community functions?
The sloping lawn allows us to extend the Rizal Park into the stadium itself and invites people to walk up and come visit the stadium as they pass by. The amphitheater acts as a public and free seating area that encourages people to mingle and rest when jogging around the track or just visiting the stadium. Together they provide a visually identifiable convenient and accessible space for everyone who comes by for a visit.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The southern end of the stadium incorporates a sloping lawn where people could walk up or have picnics and leads to an amphitheater with a magnificent backdrop. The eastern side that used to be a road now becomes a promenade that connects us with the university where students could freely enter and turns the stadium into part of the campus.
The underside of the seats cover warm up tracks that are free for the public's use. This expression of social architecture allows us to create a barrier free stadium that is accessible to everyone.
Architecture should not discriminate. Most especially against the poor who need our public space the most. Social spaces should never scrutinize or bar you because you need better clothes or shoes or even identification. You should not need a ticket to enter a space built with the people's money.
This is both a stadium and a park. it is a space that does not discriminate. This is a piece of social infrastructure that helps bond the community. It is a stadium for the people. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Total Seating Capacity: 12,000 people
Site Area: 43,820 sqm
Total Construction Floor Area: 26,613 sqm
Pitch & Track Area: 16,475 sqm - Tags
- Marcos Stadium, Laoag, Ilocos Norte, Philippines
- Production Technology
- The Marcos stadium is built by local builders, architects, and engineers. No flights or co2 emissions. Every piece of the structure is produced and assembled locally
The Marcos Stadium is sustainable by being local. This is a stadium built for only $20 million. Built without foreign loans or increased taxes. It is the only environmentally and socially sustainable stadium space that truly serves the public. Each seat is locally formed HDPE and every rail locally extruded GI pipe. Every column or beam is built up from locally produced flanges and webs.
The roof and catwalk, the steel bays, and concrete decks are robust and laid bare. The entire stadium is clad in affordable locally produced pvc roofing sheets that are lightweight and practical, and impact and uv resistant.
They reflect the most common corrugated roofing materials used in local houses.The pattern reduces the scale of the stadium to a more visually digestible form. It is arranged in a local Binakol or whirlwind pattern that creates an optical illusion representing the sea. A traditional pattern passed down from generation to generation, used for local inabel fabrics that are still made by hand and celebrated today. It is a familiar visual identity that ilocanos use to wrap infants at birth, or as veils and shawls for weddings and other formal gatherings.
The striking pattern is unmistakable from every angle. It clads this modern geometry in tradition and history. It is a monument that expresses the characteristic frugality and modesty of the Ilocano people and echoes their functional landmarks, from the buttresses of Paoay Church to the windmills of Bangui.
This is a character expressed in its boldly exposed structure, an unadorned quality that highlights the vastness, the sense of openness to represent the origins of an agricultural society. - Design Challenge
- The most challenging aspect of the design was convincing the various stakeholders of the viability of an open stadium and the importance this openness gives to the general public.
- Research
- Elevate FEM Stadium's functionality and cultural significance in Laoag. WTA employed multidisciplinary methods, including site surveys, interviews, and advanced tools. Engaged local artisans and architects, yielding a culturally rich, revitalized stadium. Insights strengthened community bonds, boosted tourism, and enhanced cultural identity. Redesign serves as a model, harmonizing tradition and modernity, fostering regional growth, and community pride.
- Inspiration
- Stadiums tend to be underutilized vanity projects that only benefit a few. Why do we need to join appointed tours or buy tickets just to see a public stadium? In building this project we wanted to redefine what a public stadium can be. A piece of social infrastructure that is available to all.
The old stadium was an open track that was a daily morning destination for joggers and students. This memory of openness became the kernel for wanting to build a truly public space. The Panathenaic stadium in Athens hosted the first Olympic games. the vast and open feel of that stadium reaches out to the trees beyond creating a quiet and serene quality that has been lost in more and more fantastic stadium forms
So as we started sketching the proportions of the stadium We kept thinking about barriers in public spaces. We started imagining how we could build an open stadium. A stadium that would be an integral part of the community
A stadium that would extend the adjacent park and connect with the university. the simple sections became the primary expression of our stadium by opening up the southern face of the stadium. We are able to create a stadium park. - Project Duration
- The project planning started in 2019 and was built and completed in May 2023.
- Operation Flow
- FEM Stadium operates as a multifunctional community hub, offering sports, arts, and daily activities. Its transformation involves integrating cultural elements, enhancing usability. Interaction is seamless, with open access. Better results stem from increased community engagement, tourism, and cultural preservation. Its performance excels due to inclusive design and sustainability.
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