Inauguration of the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice on 22 September 2013
Copyright VINCI 2013
20 September 2013 - Events - France
VINCI is a leading player with regard to building and operating the stadia that will host the UEFA Euro 2016 finals in France. This is a new field in which the Group can apply its concessionaire-builder model and a challenge that extends beyond the 2016 deadline in terms of developing business in these new-generation arenas without remaining restricted by their sport and in the long run.
The Allianz Riviera, inaugurated on 22 September 2013, is the first of the three new stadia built by VINCI in the run-up to the UEFA Euro 2016 finals. Designed as a major multi-functional structure seating 35,000 spectators, it will be the first defining structure – at the same time as its shop window – of the Var Plain Eco-Valley project, a large-scale urban and regional planning programme that has been classified a project of national interest. “The Allianz Riviera has been driven by the city’s determination, because it wanted an exemplary project in terms of sustainable development”, confirms Xavier Lortat-Jacob, Chief Executive Officer of Nice Eco Stadium, a company in which VINCI Concessions is the main shareholder and that holds the partnership contract and is the stadium’s future operator. “In our opinion, the idea was not to add a green layer to the project, but definitely to organise the entire design approach around environmental challenges. The manner in which we have met this priority expectation was one of the keys of our success.”
Indeed, creative daring and eco-design have been combined in this project imagined by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, with its wooden grid roof structure, its natural air-conditioning system using a wall of fans to channel the dominant winds of the Var Plain, or its photovoltaic panels that make it into a positive energy stadium.
On 10 February 2011, the partnership contract between the city of Nice and the Nice Eco Stadium consortium, headed by VINCI Concessions, in association with Caisse des Dépôts and SEIEF, entered into force. This contract covers the design, funding, construction, operation and maintenance of the future Nice Stadium that will be home to the city’s resident club, i.e. OGC Nice, for 30 years. Currently located in Paris, the National Sport Museum will be moved to the arena and 5,000 sq. m. will be dedicated to it. The construction site began in the summer of 2011 and the stadium was delivered in the summer of 2013. Four regional companies of VINCI Construction France (Dumez Côte d’Azur, GTM TP Côte d’Azur, Triverio Construction, Campenon Bernard Sud-Est) and its specialised subsidiary Fargeot Lamellé Collé worked on the project and regional companies of VINCI Energies France: Jean Graniou, Lefort Francheteau, Tunzini, Uxello et Graniou.
Eurovia carried out work on the pavement, sidewalks and the car park. For its part VINCI Facilities (VINCI Energies) will ensure upkeep (cf. the diagram below), major maintenance and services on the site for 27 years. The contract also includes the development and commercialisation of a real estate programme covering around 30,000 sq. m. of retail outlets, entrusted to a valuation company combining VINCI Immobilier and Adim Côte d’Azur, a subsidiary of VINCI Construction France.
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3,000 workers for the construction
35,624 seats
10,000 sqm reception venues
44 private box
16 lounges
22 refreshment stalls
9,000 tons of steel
80,000 cubic meters of concrete
142,496 forward seat attachment bolts
9,300 sqm of lawn
4,000 solar panels
3,000 tonnes of CO2 avoided thanks to the use of wood for the roof
Further information
On the web
Allianz Riviera
Media contacts
Stéphanie Malek
Tel: +33 1 57 98 66 28
media.relations@vinci.com
A roof structure in wood, a world-class technical prowess
Made of timber and metal, the roof structure was one of the major problems encountered in this exceptional structure. The Allianz Riviera is the first stadium to use such a large wooden roof structure. Wood was chosen in particular because of its degree of elasticity adapted to seismic areas and its lightness.
A huge amount of geometry modelling work was carried out in order to find repetitiveness in the wooden grid and rationalise the production of the some 2,300 beams that make up the wooden grid. As the wooden bars primarily work in tension & compression according to the loads they have to bear, Fargeot LC chose to have beams made up of “girder bars” crossed by “monolithic bars”. This typology leads to better recovery of axial efforts. Noteworthy points in terms of the stadium’s geometry: in the Nord and South areas of the stadium, 2 inner courtyards are covered thanks to “skirts”: the metallic upper surface draws away from the structure instead of drawing closer to it, just like Marilyn Monroe’s skirt was blown up by the blast from a subway vent in a famous scene.
There is mechanical complexity between timber and metal, as these two materials have very different operational characteristics. Fargeot designed a system to assemble the grid via multidirectional binding, in a butterfly shape, which unites the metallic
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The roof structure in a few figures:
49,500 m2 covered;
4,000 m3 of raw timber;
4,636 parts of glued laminated timber of 8.50 m. on average, assembled in structural braiding;
1,320 connecting nodes linking the extremities of the cross beams to the feet of metallic pyramids;
1,200 double members of cross beams;
2,840 tons of metallic roof structure;
More than 8,000 hours spent on this feature by the research department;
More than 40,000 hours worked in Fargeot workshops, i.e. the equivalent of 25 employees working full-time for a 1 year;
About 25,000 hours of lifting carried out on the site over 5 months;
46 metres of unsupported roof overhang over stands at 30 metres above the pitch;
The roof structure peaks 40 metres above the level of the pitch.