The site for the construction of the stadium is reserved on the left bank of the Oka at its confluence with the Volga, its total area is 45.5 hectares. Today, this part of the Strelka is just beginning to be developed - from the southeast, the site is limited by the future continuation of Sovnarkomovskaya Street, from the northwest - by the continuation of Betancourt Street, and from the north-east - by the formed Volga embankment. The fact that this territory needs some kind of image object has been talked about for a very long time - the Arrow is perfectly visible from the water area of both rivers and plays an important role in city panoramas. The idea of building a stadium here may be the optimal solution - it is difficult to find another equally expressive typology, suggesting vivid architectural experiments. However, Studio 44 relied primarily on the environmental friendliness of the projected facility.
“From the very beginning we had no doubts about what this object should be like,” recalls Nikita Yavein. - We understood that the main entrance of the stadium should be oriented to the south, towards the Kanavinsky Bridge, because it is from this bridge that the main streams of cars and ground public transport will be directed to the arena. And it was just as obvious to us that this should be the most green object, because its immediate surroundings are industrial buildings, rather dull and chaotic. The landmark is, of course, necessary here, but the landmark is exactly green, capable of not just “stake out” the territory, but breathe life into it”.
The football stadium is interpreted by Studio 44 as a green hill, in the heart of which there is a football field (105 x 68 m) with a three-tiered amphitheater for 33 thousand spectators, and the top is crowned with a snow-white bowl of the upper stands that can accommodate another 9 thousand people. In strict accordance with the functional program, the architects surround the arena with a ring of premises for match participants (athletes, coaches, referees), technical, economic, administrative services and infrastructure of the spectator section. At the same time, parking lots, cafes, shops, toilets and exhibition halls are distributed at different levels of the outer contour of the building - the architects cover the steps-terraces with vegetative soil, due to which a cone-shaped gentle hill grows on the site.
On the green slopes of this hill, 30 staircases have been launched for access to the stands of each spectator sector, and, offset relative to each other, they form spectacular diagonal cutouts. “This allowed not only to give the slopes of the hill an interesting texture, but also to optimally distribute pedestrian flows, minimizing the time for loading the stadium and evacuating people in case of an emergency,” explains Nikita Yavein. It is also important that the very shape of the hill provides an extremely compact placement in terms of all infrastructures and utility rooms, and the parking lots hidden in it are as close as possible to the spectator's seats and the playing field.
In addition to the stairs, the stadium's vertical communications system includes elevators and escalators in the main entrance area, where the hill is solemnly "opened". It is the upper stands with 9 thousand seats that will provide the arena with the total capacity that is necessary for holding matches of the football world and European championships here. But since such events a priori will not happen too often, the architects foresaw that all infrastructures for serving the "bowl" (toilets, catering establishments, etc.) can function according to a temporary scheme: at the end of the match, they are disassembled and stored in a specially designated room. …
The pylons raise the upper stands three meters above the hill, making the bowl appear to be floating in the air. The involuntary comparison with a UFO ship is greatly enhanced by the stairs running along each of the pylons: at the bottom of the "bowl" the architects cut rectangular portals from which numerous ladders descend to the ground. “Such a decision only at first glance seems extremely futuristic. In fact, the landscaped slopes with staircases-descents and viewpoints are a landscape form that is extremely characteristic of the high banks of the Volga. With the emergence of the stadium, the silhouette of Strelka will organically merge into the Volga panorama, and it will echo with the landscapes on the other side of the Oka,”Nikita Yavein is sure.
The green shell of the arena will not only give it a memorable appearance, which favorably distinguishes the Nizhny Novgorod stadium from its world counterparts, but will also emphasize the status of Nizhny Novgorod as an environmentally responsible city. The slopes of the hill will contribute to the natural maintenance of a comfortable microclimate in the sports complex, accumulating heat in the cold season and protecting the premises from overheating in the heat. In addition, the facades in the form of a terraced park will become a generator of fresh air and provide a record percentage of landscaping of the territory, and the ascent along the slopes of the green hill and passage through the view galleries (they are planned to be organized in a circle at the top of the "hill" at around +24.50 and along the upper edge of the bowl, at around +42.00) will allow you to conduct fascinating architectural excursions here. In other words, the stadium, designed as a terraced park, not lacking in observation platforms and leisure venues, will become for the city not only the epicenter of significant sporting events and a landmark landmark, but also a place of attraction for the general public.
