Day 2: Dacia Arena, how to design it and which issues does it imply?

A day fully dedicated to the “Dacia Arena experience” introduced us into the core of the program.

Which target for a stadium renovation?

According to the first speaker of the day, Gianluca Pizzamiglio, Udinese’s Marketing Manager, the new Dacia Arena was planned to become the “expression of tradition and innovation”, able to “create different experience for different targets”, from families to business managers. The main aim was to renovate the concept of stadium, not only as the stage of football matches, but also as a city symbol, a meeting point that can be used all week long, hosting events, entertaining activities and allowing office spaces for CONI.

After 10 years of design process, the club started the reconstruction work in 2014 and finished in 2016, and one of the challenges was the decision to continue playing matches in the “old” Stadio Friuli concurrently. Now the stadium is perfectly working, even if some areas, such as the new restaurant, the gym, the swimming pool and other spaces are still not available because of permitting bureaucracy. The multiple areas were prepared according to the planned type of fruition, i.e. the club house, divided in 4 zones, dedicated to specific target of customers such as sponsor managers, small and medium firms’ managers and vip guests. This new perspective of the approach to the Stadia business became evident, finding correspondences with notions about marketing learned in the last years at University.

What could Udinese expect starting from 2016?

The comparison with US trend of new NFL stadia attendance revealed a potential of increase of revenues and profitability. The “novelty effect”, combined with the “sense of belonging” were key elements to be used, especially for attracting fans during non-top matches. The design of stadium play a crucial role.

How to build a new stadium and how to design Dacia Arena?

Marco Casamonti, Dacia Arena Urbanistic Architect, and Matt Rossetti, Chief Architect of Serious Fun, presented the keywords for these kind of buildings: central location, scalability, multifunctionality, sustainability and integration.

Casamonti underlined the necessity of a private stadium, involving the real interest of a club that can facilitate the process more than a public ownership. He projected the façade, inspired by Palazzo dei Diamanti, matching the tradition with innovation.

Rossetti compared the building of a stadium in different contexts, out of Italy, highlighting three main aspects of the entire project: design, economic strategy and trends. The centrality of fans experience and appreciation was conveyed during all the speech and impressed the audience.

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