Football Stadium, Rizoupoli, Athens

It is a football stadium built in the 1950’s with reinforced concrete.

It is located in Rizoupoli, a densely populated area, part of the urban fabric of Athens – Attica.

Because it had to be used in 2002 as a temporary “home ground” of the football team Olympiacos – then champion of the greek league – it was deemed necessary to renovate and strengthen it within a short period of time in order to be used in the next season.

The problems of this old football stadium, were the ravages on the reinforced concrete skeleton: “concrete carbonation” and low concrete strength, as well as “reinforcement” revealing and corrosion due to oxidation, had been found at several areas of the existing structure, and had to be addressed.

The stadium had been built in phases, unfortunately not always according to statics design and relative calculations and with various materials, stone, brickwork and reinforced concrete.

The purpose of the interventions was primarily to ensure the safe operation of the stadium under static and seismic loads.

The static solution chosen provided strengthening of the structure through the construction of shotcrete jackets, both on the vertical elements and the lower side of the “multi-fold” “slabs” of the grandstands, which were built integrally with the reinforced concrete framework.

Finally, areas that suffered significant damage, such as the grandstands’ parapets, balconies, stairs and staircases, and human-traffic areas were fully restored, where needed.