Manchester United stadium "one of the most exciting projects in the world" says Norman Foster

British architect Norman Foster explains his design for the recently unveiled Manchester United football stadium in this video.

English football club Manchester United released a video of the architect talking about the upcoming 100,000-seat stadium, which is planned to replace Old Trafford as the club's stadium.

"This has to be one of the most exciting projects in the world today," Foster + Partners founder Foster said in the video.

"It starts with the most famous football club in the world, it starts with the fans, and it starts with the idea of making something which is so intense it brings you close to the pitch, acoustically it cultivates the roar."

Foster described his design as a "global destination". With a 100,000-seat capacity, it will surpass the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium to become the biggest stadium in the UK.

A tent-like structure supported by three 200-metre-tall masts will cover the Manchester United stadium and extend over outdoor public space.

"As you move away from the stadium, it's not a fortress surrounded by a sea of cars," said Foster.

"It's open, and it's contained by an umbrella that harvests solar energy, harvests rainwater, but it's protective," he continued. "It encloses arguably the largest public space in the world."

As part of the wider masterplan, the architect's eponymous studio Foster + Partners will improve pedestrian routes and public transport in the area, with a train station forming the start of a main route towards the stadium.

"We [will] rebuild the Old Trafford station, and that becomes the processional way to the stadium," said Foster.

"Welcoming and at the heart of a new sports-led neighbourhood, it's walkable, it's well served by public transport, endowed by nature, it learns from the past, it creates streets – it's a mixed-use mini city."

Foster hopes to complete the Manchester United stadium in five years by transporting prefabricated elements via the Manchester Ship Canal – a waterway linking Manchester to the Irish Sea.

"Normally, a stadium would take 10 years to build," he said. "We halved that time – five years.

"How do we do that? By prefabrication, by using the network of Manchester Ship Canal, bringing it back to a new life – shipping in components, 160 of them, Meccano-like," he continued.

Other stadiums set to be built around the world include a sunken football pitch in Egypt by Gensler and Populus's revamp of the Giuseppe Sinigaglia Stadium at Lake Como.

The images are courtesy of Foster + Partners.

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