Lansdowne Road Stadium

Seat colour much better with the plastic removed too…

@gunter wrote:

It’s the whole distortion of the structure, particularly the roof, in a hopeless attempt to make the stadium look somehow ‘complete’, that comes across as jarring and stupid. You’d also have to suspect that the decision not to equalize both ends [somewhere between the two extremes] had more to do with creating a concert venue than a ball park, which also diminishes it’s value in my eyes.

@dermot_trellis wrote:

I still can’t get over the clunky steelwork. I’d be very interested to know if any alternative less-obtrusive structural solutions were discussed and tried and if the end result is some sort of money-saving compromise or ‘safe option’ or something.

Whats wrong with money-saving compromises and optimising the stadiums use by designing it to accomodating concerts? The stadium has cost €410 million, but you are right, thats not enough and the only income should be from rugby and soccer matchs!

The stadium looks amazing, regardless of the steel or the low end. Its great to see the Europa League final will be played there next year so we can show it off to the rest of Europe.

According to avivastadium.ie the official opening of the stadium is this coming Friday May 14th.:)

final thoughts?

As a Leinster fan you feel a particular pride in this project as we certainly have the World’s best club ground by an absolute distance. This along with Thomond Park will certainly underpin the quality of Irish Rugby for decades to come given the vastly enhanced ticket revenue that will be on offer. I’m coming to the conculsion the IRFU should buy Havelock Square, put it into containers send it to Shanghai and flog it as an authentic Irish Victorian Square; then with the planning objection gone go and finish the job and with whats left over get every overweight 13 year old and subject them to a soviet style prop training school located next to Kylemore Abbey.

Now to beat Munster in an hours time and get more silverware as is deserved by our magnificent new home!!

The RDS served a very useful purpose in the development of the game in that the crowd levels were too high for Donnybrook but too small for a 56,000 capacity Landsdowne. I went to the interprovincial final in 1986 between Leinster and Ulster and there was a crowd of c3,000 at Landsdowne; there was as you can imagine no atmosphere. In recent years the travelling support for Leinster has been up to 20,000 indicating that support has grown off the scale for the larger games.

There is no question that for the bigger games such as Heineken cup or Munster v Leinster in the Magners that the Aviva could sell out comfortably. What is the point in paying rent to the RDS when such a fine stadium exists? If you were a passionate Cardiff fan considering a weekend break would it not be a lot more attractive to travel to the Aviva than the RDS which although charming is not a real ball venue.

Any future extension of seating upwards at the Havelock Square end would entail the removal of the ENTIRE roof structure of the stadium (and thus the entire external cladding since it all hangs from the main roof structure) given that the primary trusses rest upon the two large and rather unsightly concrete pillars which are only about ten rows back from the edge of the pitch. The whole design completely precludes any future expansion – yet another major design flaw to add to the ridiculous interior of the Aviva Stadium. The bus shelter isn’t getting any better looking… Oh that’s right, it’ll do grand since it’s lovely looking from outside… :rolleyes:

@BTH wrote:

Any future extension of seating upwards at the Havelock Square end would entail the removal of the ENTIRE roof structure of the stadium (and thus the entire external cladding since it all hangs from the main roof structure) given that the primary trusses rest upon the two large and rather unsightly concrete pillars which are only about ten rows back from the edge of the pitch.

Is this correct? I am no engineer/architect but it appears to me that the roof/wall behind the north stand and between the two concrete trusses does not provide any significant support to the roof over the two long sides. If that assumption is true, would it not be possible to build a large stand as wide as the pitch between the two trusses (perhaps a large single tier like the Anfield ‘kop’). Obviously, the design of such a stand’s roof, cladding and the north end’s corners would have to deal with blending into or intersecting the rest of the stadium but I am sure that is within the capabilities of stadium architects. I’d also think this could be done with the stadium remaining in use, depending on how much land to the north of the site that was actually acquired.

@Morlan wrote:

What´s with the roof? Looks like it´s about to collapse. :confused:

I don’t think it will collapse.:rolleyes:

I was lucky enough to be at the launch party on Friday night and the place looked stunning. (Sadly, I don’t have the 15k needed to ensure future admission to the premium level but it is fairly awesome.)

I’m biased, but I don’t really understand the constant carping about the stadium. Is this a uniquely Irish thing – its a good stadium but not a great stadium – (Eamon Dunphy was at the party). It came in on time and under budget, it’s the most exciting new building in the country (IMO) and it is unquestionably in the right place.

The issue of expanding to the north is dead, not sleeping, not stunned – dead. You cannot buy up (and demolish?) part of O’Connell Gardens – and even if you could it would represent lousey planning – and you cannot move the stadium any closer to O’ Connell Gardens – it is at its absolute max at present in terms of proximity and height.

I’m celebrating one of the few Irish planning and development wins of the past year/s and I’m happy to live with the constraints inherent in staying at Lansdowne Road.:D

@publicrealm wrote:

I’m biased, but I don’t really understand the constant carping about the stadium.

I don’t know why you’d be perplexed. There’s is nothing unreasonable about most of the criticism.

It has an obvious functional flaws; the sightlines for spectators in the upper seats are obstructed by the steelwork and the capacity is too low (admittedly a condition imposed by the planning process we assume).

It has aesthetic flaws – again this bulky “meccano model” internal steelwork and the fact that roof curves are not curvey enough. The northern “dip” looked like an interesting undulation in the sleek computer generated design images but in reality it looks like the design compromise that it is.

By my calculations it would make it into the top 10 list of most expensive stadiums in the world on a per-seat basis. That top 10 list includes the likes of Wembley, Madison Sq Garden (which admittedly blows the rest out of the water in terms of cost per seat), the Emerates and complete fiascoes like the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. It should be damn near perfect for this sort of money; producing a stadium which is “good but not great” must be considered something of a failure when you’ve spent 8000 euro per-seat.