Half of America’s pro sports venues will be antiques before long. Stadiums get swapped out on a 30-year clock, and with the last big booms in the 1970s and early 2000s, another round of wrecking balls is on the horizon. Taxpayers? They’re done funding billionaire playgrounds. Teams still need a place to play. Fans still crave the lights and noise. So, what’s the smarter play?
Look 4,000 miles east. In Tampere, Finland, JKMM Architects pulled off something that doesn’t just host matches—it fixes a neighborhood. Tammela Stadium is Finland’s first hybrid football stadium, welded to housing, shops and street life. JKMM founding partner Samuli Miettinen told us how they did it and why the rest of the world should pay attention.
A Stadium That Actually Belongs to Its Block
“The Tammela Stadium project was driven by the city of Tampere’s ambition to revitalize the historic Tammela district with a new, multifunctional city block,” Miettinen said. “Our goal was to create a high-quality football stadium that also functions as an active part of the urban environment year-round. We wanted to provide more than just a sports experience—we aimed to create a stadium that belongs to the neighborhood, with a strong identity and vibrant street life.”
They didn’t just tuck a grocery store under some bleachers. JKMM built five residential buildings—256 apartments in total—into the stadium footprint. Some lucky residents can literally watch a match from their balconies. At street level? A supermarket, restaurants, pubs, wellness services and an underground parking deck to keep the narrow streets clear.
“Our key strategy was to respect and enhance the existing urban fabric and community,” Miettinen said. “The stadium is not an isolated monument but part of the city block, with the roof arching gracefully over the buildings and public spaces. We separated the stadium and housing structures technically but unified them architecturally. Space efficiency was maximized by layering uses vertically and placing complementary functions close together.”
This isn’t a shiny alien spaceship dropped into a neighborhood. It’s a stadium woven right into the city’s DNA.
Engineering Headaches Worth Having
Pulling off that blend meant wrestling with physics and logistics.
“One of the main structural challenges was designing the extensive roof structure and the complex interaction between the stadium and residential buildings,” Miettinen said. “The eastside stand features a suspended steel canopy supported by four large pylons with cables, while the west stand is structurally supported by vertical columns integrated with the building mass beneath. Ensuring the roof does not cast shadows on the pitch or nearby schoolyard added further complexity.”
That asymmetry saved materials and money without breaking the aesthetic. Sequence mattered too:
“Residential cores were largely built first, followed by stadium wall structures,” Miettinen said. “Coordinating the roof installation—especially the eastern canopy and its steel cable suspension—was particularly complex. What made the construction of the suspended end canopies challenging was that the connection between the glass walls and the canopies is flexible, allowing the canopy to deform under the weight of the snow load. For this reason, the lower ends of the main glass walls are hinged, allowing the angle of the glass walls to change.”
And then there was bureaucracy. “Mixing residential, retail and stadium uses on eight city plots demanded careful negotiation and urban planning,” he said. “Involving city residents in the planning process was a positive experience, although a complaint about the detail plan delayed the start of the project by two years.”
Still, Miettinen stayed bullish: “The shared vision for a dense, livable city block was key to moving forward,” he said. “I believe that everyone involved in the project learned how to build a sustainable and functional densifying city.”
Meeting UEFA Rules Without Ruining Anyone’s Sleep
Sports federations don’t bend, and neither do neighbors who want quiet nights.
“Reconciling strict football federation standards with complex urban, residential and acoustic requirements was no small task,” Miettinen said. “For example, the stadium had to meet UEFA standards for pitch dimensions, safety and crowd flow while ensuring residential noise levels never exceeded 35 dB by day and 30 dB at night. This meant using high-performance soundproof windows and structural separation techniques to guarantee a high-quality playing environment alongside comfortable living conditions.”
It worked. “The community response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Miettinen said. “Residents appreciate living in a vibrant, well-connected neighborhood and the variety of commercial and wellness services at street level enhances daily life. We were pleasantly surprised by how well the space functions for a wide range of events—from youth tournaments to corporate gatherings and even concerts—showing its adaptability beyond just football.”
What the Next U.S. Stadium Boom Should Steal from Finland
The moral isn’t complicated: stop dropping billion-dollar cathedrals in asphalt seas. Start stitching venues into the life of the city.
“A key lesson is the value of integrating cultural facilities like sports venues deeply into the urban fabric rather than isolating them,” Miettinen said. “Hybrid multifunctionality, when carefully designed, can activate a neighborhood and create resilient, lively urban spaces and synergies between stakeholders.”
For AEC pros, that means denser projects, uglier zoning battles and trickier engineering. It also means smarter collaboration—digital tools to coordinate architects, engineers, planners and community voices before the first footing is poured. Because when the next stadium wave hits, the winners won’t be the flashiest renders. They’ll be the ones that fit their cities like they’ve always been there.
