The team comprising Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) working with architecture and engineering consultancy Sweco and landscape architect Tredje Natur has won the contract for the Aarhus Football Stadium public-private partnership (PPP) project in Denmark.

The project involves the construction of a new Aarhus football stadium in the city’s Marselisborg forest, Aarhus, Denmark. The stadium is based on the design concept called Titled the “Arena of the Forest”, which is informed by the vertical rhythm of the surrounding trees that reach up to 47m in height. The design is presented as a continuation of the forest, the verticality of which continues in the public colonnades of the stadium and the wooden ribs of its façade. The horizontal volume of the stadium is divided into human scales, while the transparent roof provides protection from the weather and increases the level of comfort in the adjacent external areas, as well as in the internal lobbies. For the construction of the stadium, concrete is used for the columns, steel for the trusses and wood for the façade cladding.

The construction of the stadium will take place in four stages and should start in the second half of 2023 and be completed in 2026.