The new all-transparent Lansdowne Road stadium won the Best Project and Innovation Award because it is the first truly site-responsive stadium of its kind anywhere in the world. This is because its form, mass, materials and aspect are defined by the location and its surroundings. All walls are covered with cold-line bended Lexan sheet to create movable and transparent “shingles” which rise both in the east and west and fall in the north so as to minimise the impact of the building on the adjoining neighbourhoods. A transparent roof is lowered to the southern sky to maximise the sunlight and the high performance sports turf, thus ensuring that the best possible playing surface is produced.

Williaam Cox Ireland were awarded the contract to build the facade, roof and internal screens. The entire load bearing structure was built from curved, spliced aluminium profiles selected both for their lightness and strength. Another reason for selecting aluminium was due to the fact it could be anodised.

Martin Sweeney, Sales Director at Williaam Cox Ltd “The facade on the new Aviva Stadium proved particularly challenging because of the complex geometry and the level of tolerance required, for example for attaching various different construction elements. Each specific profile required a separate radius due to the fact that Lansdowne was designed on a series of 3D platforms.

Supplier of the aluminium profiles was Sapa RC Profiles in Belgium, one of the few suppliers in Europe of large profiles (up to 620x50 mm, or 300 x300 mm, or diameter of 320mm; at length sizes of 26 m and a maximum weight of 65 kg/m).

It was also Sapa RC Profiles who did the bending of the profiles. Some of them were over 10 metres long and it wasn’t possible to manufacture these profiles in a single batch. The tolerance requirements on the Aviva Stadium were much more demanding than that of normal construction work.

The Aviva stadium is a perfect reference for aluminium design.