Holy Al Najaf Stadium

A Stadium in an Elegant Lattice Frame

Taking its façade design inspiration from Imām Alī Mosque in Al Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, the Al Najaf stadium is home to Najaf Football Club. The stadium’s lattice work echoes themes from the mosque and forms a unique square exterior around the stadium bowl. The stadium accommodates 31,000 spectators and includes VIP premium suites and press spaces. The complex also includes two training facilities, support buildings and a parking area.

We provided structural design and façade engineering services to HOK and Anwar Soura for General Contracting Company, Ltd. for the facility, which was completed in 2019.

Highlights

• The primary structural system of the stadium consists of cast-in-place concrete frames supporting beams in the radial and circumferential directions. The structure is designed as moment-resisting frames in each direction to resist lateral wind forces.
• The stadium’s roof structure is steel, consisting of main cantilevered trusses spaced at 13.7 meters on center to align with the exterior colonnade grid.
• Seating is precast, prestressed single or double units, typically with 150-millimeter-thick risers and 100-millimeter-average-thickness treads. They span to the raker beams on the radial grids and to precast vomitory walls in between the rakers at access openings to seating.