Stadium 974 in Doha one of the seven stadiums being used for the ongoing World Cup in Qatar, will be dismantled immediately after the world cup Qatar authorities have re-echoed.
Stadium 974 is named after Qatar’s international dialing code and the number of recycled shipping containers used to build the stadium. The Port-side structure with more than 40,000 seats is partially built from recycled shipping containers and steel.
Qatar hinted that when dismantled may be shipped to countries that need the infrastructure but no country has been named yet as direct beneficiary of the would be dismantled stadium.
“Designing for disassembly is one of the main principles of sustainable building,” said Karim Elgendy, an associate fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank who previously worked as a climate consultant for the World Cup.
“It allows for the natural restoration of a building site or its reuse for another function,” he said, adding that a number of factors need to considered “before we call a building sustainable.”
Buildings are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions. Of that, about 10 per cent comes from “embodied” carbon or the greenhouse gas emissions related to the construction, maintenance and demolition of buildings.
Qatar has faced international criticism for its treatment of low-paid migrant workers who built over $200 billion worth of stadiums, metro lines and other infrastructure for the World Cup. Qatar says the criticism ignores labor reforms enacted in recent years.
Stadium 974, named after Qatar’s international dialing code and the number of containers used to build the stadium, is the only venue that Qatar constructed for the World Cup that isn’t air-conditioned. During a match Friday in which Switzerland defeated Serbia, the air was noticeably more humid and hot than in other venues.
The stadium is hosting only evening matches, when temperatures are cooler.
Fenwick Iribarren Architects, which designed Stadium 974 and two other World Cup stadiums, says the idea was to avoid building a “white elephant,” a stadium that is left unused or underused after the tournament ends, as happened following previous World Cups in South Africa, Brazil and Russia.