Ernest of Santo

Thesis in Architectural Design

INSTANT FOOTBALL: Study of a modular system for the construction of stadiums

Ernesto di Santo's Thesis

Contact Email: ernestodisanto@gmail.com

"SAPIENZA" University of Rome
Five-year single-cycle Master's Degree Course.
Speaker: Prof. Federico De Matteis
AA 2010 – 2011

The “myth” of modular design, of the possibility of imagining the repeatability of entire buildings even of high complexity and then industrialising their components, has an ancient origin and, even if the facts have demonstrated its substantial inefficiency, it continues to present itself as a moment of reflection for those who consider the project as a highly rational, markedly methodological activity. Durand already hypothesized the possibility of designing buildings considering the modularity of the compositional elements as the keystone of a system that would be governed by reason, where every complexity could be traced back to an ordered sequence of controllable parts.
Ernesto di Santo's graduation project, emblematically named Instant Football, recovers some of the cornerstones of prefabrication theory, proposing a modular system capable of leading to the construction, in a short time and at low cost, of small and medium-sized football stadiums, designed for sports clubs that, in the absence of structures adequate to the most recent national regulations, must still be able to avail themselves of a solution - even a temporary one - to respond to the requests of the Football Federation and the market. Thus, the system designed can also provide for a certain flexibility over time, expanding or reducing the capacity of the facility depending on the division in which the team plays season by season.
The result of the experiment, located on the outskirts of Foggia, demonstrates the flexibility of the proposed system, capable of solving the complex needs of a structure of this kind with a minimum number of basic modules, while at the same time managing to create stadiums whose image is sufficiently variable and customizable so that they are not perceived as clones by the public.
Federico De Matteis

The project was born from an understanding of the changes taking place in the world of football. The revision and expansion of existing regulations regarding the safety of sports facilities (CONI Regulations, Ministerial Decree of March 1996, Legislative Decree of February 2003, Ministerial Decree of June 2005 – Pisanu Package, Legislative Decree of February 2007, Ministerial Decree of August 2007, Ministerial Decree of December 2005) and CONI Regulations (Regulations for Serie B, Lega PRO, and Lega Dilettanti stadiums), the privatization of facilities, and the increasingly deficient situation of Italian stadiums (lack of facilities, inefficiency of safety systems, extremely high management costs in the lower leagues) have driven this design research towards a possible solution: the "Modular Stadium."

The research was directed and finalized to the design of a typology of stadium, surrounded by current critical insights, such as flexibility and functionality in use, compliance with safety standards, efficiency and speed of costs and construction times and the propensity for the aspect of "sustainability", which must be developed with respect for the environment and energy saving.

Particular attention was paid to the design of a “sector or module” from a technological point of view, which can guarantee and trigger that process of industrialization and prefabrication necessary for rapid construction.

The steps in the research phase were mainly three:

– An initial ANALYSIS PHASE, aimed at studying and researching the typologies of football stadiums, not only in the Italian panorama but also in the European and global ones, with related functional characteristics such as the layout of the facility, escape routes, parking and flow areas for visiting fans, etc.;

– A second DESIGN PHASE, where every aspect of the modular stadium took shape, with technological advances, such as the ability, thanks to its modularity, to make rapid and flexible subsequent changes in capacity to adapt to the team's fluctuations in their respective tournaments (expansion and reduction of stands, installation of full and partial coverings, refreshment points, etc.);

– A third APPLICATION PHASE, in which this type of stadium was inserted into an existing urban context (Train-Tram interchange, Foggia-Lucera line), to meet the needs of a third division team (Lega PRO): US Foggia, in order to verify the effective usability of the facility.
Ernest of Santo