EFFICIENT RENOVATION OF A HISTORIC FOOTBALL STADIUM
Located in Turku, the largest city in Southwest Finland, Veritas Stadium is a football stadium of international standard.
The stadium is steeped in tradition: the oldest of its three terraces was completed for the 1952 Olympics, while the newest, the main terrace, was completed for the 2009 European Women’s Championship.
Veritas Stadium’s new heated and environmentally friendly artificial turf pitch meets the highest international criteria and complies with the Quality Pro standards of the International Association Football Federation FIFA.
The renovation project, which was started in 2022, involved the building of a sand-based artificial pitch in place of the natural grass pitch, which was at the end of its lifespan. The second project involved increasing the capacity of the terrace.
Having a heated artificial turf pitch significantly extends the time the pitch can be used each year and will also allow other events to be held in addition to matches.
FACTS
Project: Veritas Stadium load compensation
Location: Turku, Finland
Contractor: Maanrakennus Kivelä Oy
Main contractor: Saltex Oy
Leca product: Leca® LWA 4–32 mm
EASY LIGHTWEIGHT FILL WITH LECA® LWA
The renovation began with earth removal in late October 2022. “We removed a 50-centimetre layer from the surface of the field, amounting to somewhere between five and six thousand cubic metres of soil,” says managing director Ville Kivelä of Maarakennus Kivelä, the earthworks subcontractor for the field renovation.
It’s necessary to lighten the structures of sports fields built on clay, which has a poor load-bearing capacity. The Veritas Stadium ground had already been lightened with Leca LWA before. After the removal of the old surface structures, the original Leca LWA layer was left in place, as it was practically as good as new.
A levelling layer of Leca LWA of 10 cm to 30 cm thickness was added to the structural layers on top of the old levelling layer.
Leca LWA was brought to the field from Leca Finland’s Kuusankoski factory by combined transport directly for filling.
COMPLETED ON SCHEDULE
At the end of February, the Leca LWA structure was almost fully in place.
The project also includes drainage, irrigation and heating systems. The drainage system, consisting of drainage pipes, the heating system, consisting of glycol circulation, and the irrigation system were all installed at the same level in the cable ducts and partly in the Leca LWA layer.
A FIFA-approved sand-based artificial turf was spread over the supporting structures in the spring, once the weather had warmed up. Maarakennus Kivelä operates mainly in the Southwest Finland region, and in recent years has been involved in several other sports facility projects as well.
“We’ve carried out several artificial turf projects over the past few years, but the Veritas Stadium renovation is our largest sports facility construction undertaking so far,” Kivelä says. The first match on the new artificial turf was played on 22 May 2023.
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