The Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022^TM: Education City stadium – a diamond in the desert

This paper presents some of the main design and construction aspects of Education City stadium, which hosted eight matches for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) World Cup Qatar 2022^TM tournament, from group games to the quarter-finals, each for approximately 45 000 fans. The stadium was envisioned as a glowing diamond on Qatar's desert landscape. The key engineering challenge was delivering the architectural vision through economic effective engineering design. A key decision was taken to develop the roof as a cable net design and to structurally separate the engineering design of the roof from the façade support steelwork. This approach considerably reduced the amount of tonnage of the main structure and reduced the cost of materials and construction. However, it still vitally maintained the visual and aesthetic continuity of the overall architectural envelope, form and geometry. Another key design decision was placing the lower tier below existing ground level, creating a reduced height to the stadium. The associated challenge was designing the basement to resist possible future uplift from groundwater, and the paper provides details of the analysis and design of the raft. The paper also presents the designs for post-World Cup legacy including the planning and engineering designs for reducing seating capacity.