Cape Town Stadium ready for 2010 World Cup

Pretoria – Keys to the brand new Cape Town Stadium will be handed over to the city’s Executive Mayor Alderman Dan Plato ahead of the Fifa World Cup to kick-off in June 2010.

“Just over a week after the successful hosting of the Final Draw for the 2010 Fifa World Cup, Cape Town will witness another momentous event – the handing over of the brand new Cape Town Stadium to the City of Cape Town.

“At a special ceremony to mark the completion of one of the world’s most spectacular stadiums, the ‘keys’ will be handed by the main contractors, Murray and Roberts and WBHO, to Cape Town’s Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato,” ,” the city said in a statement on Monday.

Construction of the 68 000-seater stadium started on 26 March 2007, and the project has been completed on deadline two years and nine months later.

In just 33 months, joint contractors Murray and Roberts and WBHO completed the massive project at a cost of R4.4-billion (about US$600-million).

The project architects were an association between GMP Architects of Germany and two local firms, Louis Karol and Associates and Point Architects.

This and that about the stadium:

The design: The sweeping silhouette of the Cape Town stadium has forever changed the face of the surrounding Green Point Common.

Enwrapped by a façade of woven fibreglass, coated with Teflon, it will resemble a rose-coloured bowl floating on a base, when lit up at night. The architects have dubbed the stadium “the Diva of Cape Town”, reflecting the constantly changing moods of the city in varying weather conditions.

The roof: The design and construction of the roof is unique throughout the world. Its basic structure resembled a bicycle wheel, open in the middle. Some 72 cables linking the outer and inner rings of the circle were slowly tightened to raise the roof from ground level to its present height.

Another first for the roof is the use of 16mm thick panels of glass to cover and protect the spectators from strong winds and rain. This will let in the light while the ceiling panels underneath – made of woven PVC fabric - will soften the noise from within.

The stadium bowl: For the eight World Cup™ matches to be played at the venue, the stadium will have a seating capacity of 68,000, including 13,000 temporary seats which will be removed afterwards. Features of the stadium are that it can be evacuated in 15 minutes and that all the spectators are close to the game.

Safety: Spectators will be protected by a state-of-the-art camera surveillance system which is monitored by police in the Venue Operations Centre inside the stadium, while pitch invasions are discouraged by a wide moat around the circumference. There is also a police station inside the building to deal with hooligans and other criminals.

How green is the stadium?

A review team appointed by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has found that the new Cape Town Stadium meets high standards of environmental protection.

Water and energy efficiency measures are part of the design and, when the old Green Point stadium was demolished to make way for the new, 95 percent of the components were recycled and reused. Water from the stadium roof and drainage of the pitch is pumped into ponds on the Green Point Common, thus reducing dependency on potable water.

The inward pitch of the roof and the use of the roof’s inner ring to house the 360 lights (instead of high exterior masts) are both features that reduce the negative visual impact from outside.

Quick facts:
    * 96,000 cubic metres of concrete were used
    * The roof has a total weight of 4,700 tons
    * Some 9,000 glass panels were used to cover 37,000 square metres of roof
    * 500 toilets and 360 urinals
    * 115 entry turnstiles
    * 16 lifts
    * More than 2,500 workers were employed on site during construction, and almost 1,200 artisans received training from the contractors

Additional information by City of Cape Town