Adelaide Oval regains oval shape; heritage elements retained in 2011-14 move to award- winning new stadium
Adelaide Oval retained heritage elements, such as the scoreboard and outer mound, within its modern award-winning stadium setting.
As well as retained elements of its heritage, Adelaide Oval is an oval again, after its internationally recognised stadium 2011-14 redevelopment. Reshaping the oval, with the short boundaries made deeper and every spectator brought 20 metres closer to the centre of play, started with Hassell Studio’s work on the western grandstand.
This was completed with Cox Architecture, Walter Brooke and Hames Sharley’s work on the overall concept that in 2016 saw Adelaide Oval nominated for The Stadium Business international award as one of the six best sports venues in the world – in competition with the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as well as the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, London’s Twickenham Stadium and Florida’s Daytona International Speedway.
The Institution of Structural Engineers in London gave the oval an award for excellence in structural design, beating projects such as the Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in the United Arab Emirates. It also was shortlisted for the title of World Building of the Year and won the Australian Institute of Architects’ award for public architecture in 2015, the national Colorbond award for steel architecture, and the state’s highest honour, the Jack McConnell award for public architecture.
Property Council of Australia gave it best tourism and leisure development at its innovation and excellence awards.
Adelaide Oval dimensions were originally 190m x 125m, unusually long and unusually narrow for an Australian cricket/football ground – a legacy from its days at a cycle racing venue. With the 2011-14 redevelopment, the oval dimensions changed to 183m x 134m, more suitable for Australian football that used 167m x 124m.
The oval cricket pitch ran north-south and historically was good for batting until the last day of a match. Since the redevelopment, a drop-in pitch was used.
Les Burdett, who joined the oval’s South Australian Cricket Association staff in 1969 and was oval manager from 1978, became an international consultant on the strength of his pitches and grounds work during 40 years at the oval.
The new Adelaide Oval competed with other venues to stay at the cutting edge, building on its technology such as:.
• five large replay screens,
• 2500 lumen lighting strength per square metre
• capacity to handle around 100,000 phone calls made during the average major football match, as well as 1.2 million data requests through mobile phones,
• three television studios, 11 radio booths and room for nearly 150 print media,,
• more than 250 point-of-sale positions around the stadium that allow tap-and-go payment,.
An all-South Australian partnership of Kojo, Big Screen Video, Sarah Constructions and Mott MacDonald have been involved in installing 314 LED full colour architectural lights in the eastern and western stands and Moreton Bay figs. The oval was more energy efficient as the Stadium Management Authority tried to reduce its power bill that rose by $800,000 in 2017.
The Adelaide and Port Adelaide (AFL) Australian Football League clubs have their separate changerooms and warm-up areas in the new southern stand. A third room was available to the away team. In the western stand, there were two international-standard cricket changerooms plus two smaller changerooms.