3XN create new ice hockey & basketball stadium

Tenderstream member 3XN are celebrating the official opening of the 62,500 sq m SAP Garden Arena in Munich, designed in collaboration with CL MAP and landscape architects Latz + Partner for client Red Bull. Located next to Frei Otto and Günther Behnisch’s iconic Olympic Stadium, the new arena is informed by the legacy of its location and surroundings. Over 10,000 visitors awaited the opening game on 27th September, involving local team ice hockey team Red Bull München, followed this week by FC Bayern Basketball's EuroLeague debut.

The arena can host up to 10,700 spectators for ice hockey and 11,500 for basketball, with three levels of VIP areas, merchandise shops, a large restaurant, a gaming room, offices and conference rooms, a parking garage, and a public rooftop terrace. The overall design challenge was to create these world-class facilities while respecting the heritage of the surrounding park. The design team concealed the arena’s three additional ice rinks underneath an artificial hill, while the arena itself is oval-shaped and asymmetrical with a green roof, forming an organic appearance that blends into the park and cityscape. The requirement to switch between an ice rink and a basketball court added a further design challenge, which was solved by a unique system that allows for the alteration of the stands’ height and slope, with mobile stands added for basketball games. 

For the interior, the use of digital media and light creates a flexible colour palette that can change the ambience of the arena in line with the branding or occasion. Jan Ammundsen, senior partner at 3XN, stated: “There is a reason why we go to arenas, why it is so important to be able to go in person: we want to experience a feeling. I believe that this feeling only arises when we experience something together. As architects, we want to help make this feeling in the hall as intense and exciting as possible. There are good tools for doing that: sound technology, lighting technology. The main thing is that the experience is something that is special, something that you cannot have anywhere else.”

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

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