The success of the Red Lions and Red Panthers, the Belgian national hockey teams, has contributed to the growing popularity of the sport in the country. To encourage this enthusiasm, the Royal Belgian Hockey Association wants to have the infrastructure it needs to organise national and international events, including a new stadium.

This infrastructure is planned for the Zwartebeek site in Uccle, considered to be the country’s “hockey capital” because of its 5,100 male and female players. Today, this sports centre is home to a lively mix of hockey pitches, tennis courts, padel courts, football pitches, basketball courts and street workout stations, as well as a municipal multi-sports hall. An urban planning and financial study has identified the three components of the site redevelopment project:

• A masterplan for the entire 80-hectare site (fixed part)
• The construction of a national hockey stadium with 4,000 covered fixed seats, extendable to 10,000 seats using temporary stands, and the landscaping of the site (optional part)
• The construction of a new 2,100 m² municipal sports hall and its surroundings (optional part)

The stadium will make it possible to create the best conditions for playing hockey on grass in Belgium. The primary purpose is excellence for topsporters but the stadium will also be used for the activities of local hockey clubs and various public initiatives.

This project is a valuable opportunity to exploit the very significant landscape potential of the Zwartebeek by creating a continuum of green spaces of high environmental quality, forming part of a larger whole and encouraging exchanges with the surrounding district for sports and leisure activities.

For this project, Beliris is looking for a multidisciplinary team with essential competencies in architecture, stability engineering and the design of public spaces. Only these competencies should be presented in the application stage. The other competencies, such as MEP engineering, BIM expertise, PEB consultancy, environmental expertise, public participation, acoustics and mobility, will be required only at the second stage of making a bid proposal.