Hong Kong, China
Stufish has designed the ABBA Arena–a 3000-capacity, temporary pop-up theater purpose-built for the Swedish pop group’s reunion tour in East London.
The mass-timber arena has been erected at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London to host the tour celebrating the release of ABBA Voyage, the group’s first album in nearly four decades.
The ABBA Arena has served as the home for ABBA’s virtual concert “ABBA VOYAGE” which opened on 26 May 2022.
The building is set to become a new cultural destination in the city of London, situated close to Pudding Mill Lane DLR station.
The steel and timber building has been conceived as a mysterious, intriguing object that demands attention, whilst creating a welcoming atmosphere for visitors to enjoy their experience.
Designed from the inside out, the 25.5m high hexagonal form of the arena is in response to the requirements of the show, the staging, and the desired seating geometry.
The largest of its kind, the structure has been designed as a demountable temporary venue, which is able to be relocated to another site at the end of its five-year tenure in East London.
“The ABBA Arena, a portable venue, will set the standard for future shows where the physical and the digital fuse to create a new genre of experience in the Physical World,” claims Ray Winkler, CEO of Stufish.
At the heart of the arena, the auditorium houses high-tech capabilities and offers a uniquely immersive entertainment experience, designed to fit 1650 seats and space for a standing audience of 1350.
The structure of the temporary venue that sits on concrete pads, is designed to create an internal clear span of 70m to allow for a large 360-degree of immersive production.
Built by ES Global, it has been optimized to be as light as possible to minimize the load on foundations.
The design of the roof is a direct response to the large structural span of the auditorium and a desire to complement the venue’s mysterious appearance.
An engineering feat, the arena is unified beneath a semi-axisymmetric steel dome weighing in at 744 tonnes, which during construction was built on the ground and then lifted 25.5m into the air by 18 strand jacks to its final position.
The roof and wall cladding have been designed to meet the acoustic performance of the venue and to limit the effects of noise on surrounding residential areas.
In contrast with the spectacle of the high-tech show inside, the external structure that braces the steel dome roof and auditorium is clad with a porous screen of sustainable timber battens.
The large ABBA logo is integrated onto two facades with LED light strips following the timber.
Outside the auditorium an extended concourse area is used to serve visitors as they arrive, sheltered from the elements by a large timber canopy built by Stage One.
Like the superstructure itself, the canopy is a modular system that can be removed in sections and can be reconfigured to meet the needs of a new site once it has been relocated.
Timber modules follow the hexagonal shape of the venue to accommodate food and beverage options, retail, toilets, and a guest lounge.
As well as the architects for the venue that will house ABBA’s long-awaited concert, STUFISH has also been commissioned as the stage designer for the virtual ABBA VOYAGE show.
Project: ABBA Arena
Architects: Stufish Entertainment Architects
Contractor: ES Global
Photographers: Dirk Lindner and Johan Persson
