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 If you go to any stadium or sports conference there are lots of people talking about HDTV and the potential it brings to the world of sports, writes Matthew Cobham of lighting specialist Philips Lighting International. Greater drama, if you have not got enough already in your family room, combined with the possibility of seeing footballer’s tears with even more clarity. So what does this mean for sports stadium architecture and following that, the lighting?
Traditionally spectators could not clearly see the minute detail of action that is possible today. Gladiators came out in arenas such as The Coliseum
and hacked each other to pieces, but the entertainment often was the other side of the arena and so to ensure that everyone was entertained it was necessary to have several fights at the same time in different corners. If you were really keen or a certain fight was not horrible enough you could wander to the other side to sample something else. This concept has recently been used in modern stadia such as The Aspire in Doha where under one roof there is soccer, swimming, table tennis, gymnastics, athletics and judo. Here spectators have the possibility to walk between the different sports.
And for several thousand years the concept remained basically the same….opponents/teams and the spectators at the stadium, during the daytime.
There are two catalysts, which have changed this only very recently. The first came after World War II when lighting technology had just become such that it could be used to enable sports to be undertaken in the evening, i.e. the Charleroi Stadium in Belgium 1949. Following this, it was television that enabled the spectator to get close to the action and even to know more about the game than the people at the stadium. The mobile phone is now adding another possibility with spectators at the stadium enjoying the stadium experience combined with the detail available from broadcasting watched on their phone in the stadium during the match. The stadium as an icon Stadium architecture has developed from the purely functional where the main objective was to get the desired number of spectators as close to the action as possible with a structure that was sufficiently aesthetic that local residents, the nation and even the world became proud of it. Now stadiums are becoming not just accepted, but icons. Creating something for spectators at the venue and in front of their TV is only part of the story as a typical stadium is only used for sport a few hours per week. For the rest of the time it is either just there taking up a lot of space or it is in its own right a symbol. The lighting is a small, but very significant part of this process.
The lighting for stadiums could be characterised broadly in two parts: firstly, aesthetic appeal, including exterior and interior architectural lighting and sports lighting where it is integrated into the architecture. And secondly, technical, such as sports lighting and emergency lighting.
So the sports lighting at a basic level needs to do the job of getting the right amount and quality of light in the right place, but it should also look good and be part of the overall stadium design. If it is not then it will just be an ‘add-on’ and the original architectural concept will be weakened. The sports lighting should be part of the architectural lighting approach to a stadium. Liked or not it is a physical fact that to achieve the required lighting performance for TV coverage that a luminaire with high output needs to be utilised and if it is not integrated well will fly in the face of any architectural design. This need not be the case and there is no reason why it should not have a place to sit with the famous three point lighting design approach of Richard Kelly – Ambient Light, Focal Glow and Play of Brilliance. It would clearly sit with the ‘Play of Brilliance’ part.
For example at the main stadium at Khalifa, the majority of the sports lighting is situated on the structural beams, which traverse the stadium. From a distance this gives the effect of an open eye looking up in to the skies. More or less light for HDTV? There is often a discussion about the amount of light needed for HDTV, some say more, some say less. The argument for less is that as camera technology has improved the camera can pick up light more easily. The argument for more is that for HDTV the camera takes many more frames per second and so quite simply more light is needed for good quality images. The elements that are rarely discussed are the ‘quality’ aspects of the lighting such as colour rendering, consistency of colour temperature, light control and uniformity. It is these factors combined with the light level which determine if the lighting installation is good or not, but for some reason many people get hung up on talking only about the ‘lighting level’.
To answer the question about how changes in the delivery of sports to spectators is changing the architecture, parallels can be made with the world of cinema. In the late 1970s and early 80s cinema was hit by the wave of video cassettes which enabled people to watch the films of their choice in the comfort of their home. The slightly tatty cinemas which existed and served stale popcorn took a nose dive. What brought the world of cinema back was the realisation that you cannot have a cinema sized screen at home with the atmosphere as is created in a cinema. This was combined with making cinemas part of larger leisure and shopping concepts. At least some of this is true for sports stadiums. The unsafe, dirty stadiums of the past (and unfortunately some still exist) are no longer accepted and the new generation of stadiums are used more and more despite TV coverage as it is difficult to replace the atmosphere even with HD.
If this parallel is true then it helps us see where stadiums could be going and the lighting needs to be an integral part of this.
To help create the concept the lighting is being integrated and thought about at an early stage. The Allianz Arena is a shining example of this. Light is very much part of the concept for the exterior and becomes the architecture itself. The concept designs for the Olympics in China 2008 show a progression of these ideas.
These examples give indications of where stadium design could go to, but for the time being the thing which no-one has fully solved is the question of temporary or permanent structures. Recently at Sport Accord in Seoul the UK sports architect James Burland talked of flexible temporary stadia which could be effectively re-used for other events, with the temporary World Cup or Olympic ‘circus’ being transported to the next venue. If this is the case then perhaps these ideas could be combined with the thoughts of US light artist James Turrell who demonstrated with his ‘Corner Projections’ that light can be used to create the illusion of a physical structure. This concept creates lots for flexible stadium design of the future and fits perfectly with the idea that if the stadium and the people in it (players and spectators) are what creates the interest for TV then the demand for more interesting and different TV will lead to the demand for even more flexible stadium concepts which can change at the flick of a switch. Ultimately it is likely that main stadia will be permanent and then secondary stadiums could become increasingly flexible to mirror the changing event needs. Matthew Cobham has worked in the lighting industry since 1994 and now is responsible for international sports lighting projects at Philips Lighting International, Miribel, France. He holds an MSc in Light and Lighting from The Bartlett School of Architecture, London.
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