Aecom's 'impossibly fast' stadium project

摘要

By the time Aecom had a deal and was able to start work on Cameroon's Japoma Stadium, it only had two years to design and deliver a project that would normally take three years, "absolute minimum". "We had a very general idea conceptually of what we needed to build," recalls Peter Ayers, Aecom's director and head of sport, "as in, 'we need a 50,000-seat stadium and we've got a site' [...] but that was it.There was no design as of two years ago." The new stadium, which is being built by Turkish contractor Yenigiin,was sanctioned alongside three others as Cameroon prepared to host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament. But in November last year, the country was stripped of its right to host the event due to preparation delays and security concerns. Despite the hitch and the original, tight timescale, the cost-saving design and construction of the stadium -located in the port city of Douala - has kept the project on schedule. Given the hugely ambitious programme, that is no mean feat.