How Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Sports Park aims to be part of people’s daily lives, rather than just a place for major events
- An architect behind the project, slated for completion in 2024, describes it as a kind of neighbourhood, catering to the local community as well as visitors
- The sports park will host the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament, major soccer matches, concerts, and other sports and entertainment events
The scale of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Sports Park is enormous.
When it is completed in 2024, dozens of athletic facilities, including a 50,000-seat stadium, will be spread out over 28 hectares of the former Kai Tak airport.
It’s the kind of project that could easily go very wrong, resulting in an alienating landscape of oversized buildings used only for the occasional tournament or soccer game.
But the architects behind the sports park say they are committed to avoiding that fate.
Instead, they describe the athletics complex as a kind of neighbourhood – a varied and diverse landscape that will host not just major events but also a mix of daily activities.
“It needs to be a place for people to visit, to have as part of their daily lives, as well as hosting the greatest sporting and recreational shows on earth,” says Richard Breslin, a Hong Kong-based senior principal and director at Populous, the Australian architecture firm that designed the sports park.
