Oujda Stadium, Morocco

A stadium is at once an experience of magnitude and intimacy. These scales are not tamed. They are not mediated. They are not made to be something that they are not. Here, magnitude and intimacy are united to exploit their differences.

Infrastructure – roads, parking, and the control over the grounds – are integrated into a network of micro landscape: places to sit, meet, play, gather, and walk.

The new Oujda Stadium will play many roles. It will be home to the Mouloudia Soccer Club. Its grounds will form a vibrant new public space, both during games and when the stadium is not in use. Its luminous ring will be an important symbol for the Rif region in northeastern Morocco, for those going to the stadium as well as for passersby making their way to and from Oujda.

This stadium is first and foremost a sequence of perceptions: a hovering object, a ring lightly tethered to the landscape, a series of tailored entry points, an elevated promenade pressed between the upper and lower bowls of seating, and, finally, a single room holding a teeming crowd of soccer fans.

The Oujda stadium is a shimmering form set onto an evanescent horizon. A single room for 45,000 people: 90,000 eyes focused on one foot meeting a ball…in the middle of a vast landscape.