Design - Build - Lead: QBA 2026 Highlights

How Kai Tak Sports Park Redefined Community Design  

Kai Tak Sports Park marks a genuine turning point in how Hong Kong thinks about urban design. It has transformed a 28-hectare site once occupied by the city's old airport into a world-class sporting facility that doubles as a thriving community precinct.  

Since it opened in March 2025, the park has welcomed around 20 million visitors and played host to two editions of the Hong Kong Sevens, four sold-out Coldplay concerts and a fixture between Premier League sides Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in front of nearly 50,000 fans.  

Kai Tak Sports Park has hosted hundreds of events including the stadium's first-ever New Year countdown concert hosted by Zhou Shen, a mainland Chinese singer. His concert capped a day when more than 120,000 people visited the precinct. 

Winning a QBA 2026 award recognises not just the scale of that achievement but the years of collaborative work that made it possible. 

“Nowhere in the world is there anything like the level of integration between international sports and entertainment facilities combined with community recreation, retail and leisure facilities that has been designed for Kai Tak Sports Park,” says Richard Breslin, Managing Director for APAC at Populous, who led the design team throughout the project. 

A vision built on integration 

From the outset, the guiding principle behind Kai Tak Sports Park was integration rather than separation. That meant breaking an enormous public realm into a series of distinct zones so the precinct could comfortably absorb tens of thousands of event-day visitors while still feeling welcoming on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.  

The 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium anchors the site, but it works in concert with two further venues, the 10,000-seat Kai Tak Arena and the 5,000-seat Kai Tak Youth Sports Ground. These flank the main stadium and extend the park's capacity for elite competition, community sport and everyday recreation. 

Running through the middle of the precinct, Sports Avenue functions as a pedestrian spine that links two MTR stations directly to the harbourfront, guiding visitors through generous plazas and green spaces rather than the concrete corridors typical of older stadia designs. On event days, that avenue channels enormous crowds efficiently towards the stadium gates, but on any other day it simply becomes a pleasant route for joggers, families and office workers looking for a lunchtime walk beside Victoria Harbour. 

Smart and sustainable choices 

Technology underpins almost every aspect of how the precinct functions day to day. The main stadium features an acoustically sealed retractable roof, a genuinely rare piece of engineering in Asia and one that keeps noise contained during major concerts. It also shields spectators from Hong Kong's punishing sub-tropical summer heat. Wrapping the stadium is a pearlescent exterior made from more than 27,000 self-cleaning aluminium panels that shift in colour from blue to purple as natural and artificial light plays across them, a shimmering effect that has earned the building its nickname, the Pearl of the Orient. 

Sustainability was a consideration from the earliest design stages. Greenery covers around 30 per cent of the entire site, rainwater harvesting meets around a quarter of the park's irrigation needs, and more than a thousand trees and shaded canopies help keep walkways bearable during the hottest months of the year.  

Locating back-of-house operations beneath the South Terrace – the legendary site of Hong Kong Sevens’ parties over the decades – also means touring trucks can drive directly into the stadium itself. This speeds up rigging for concerts considerably and, just as importantly, keeps noise pollution to a minimum for residents living nearby. 

Overcoming unprecedented challenges 

Construction began in 2019, and within a matter of months the team faced a challenge nobody could have planned for when the Covid-19 pandemic brought international travel to a near standstill. Delivering a project of this complexity already required coordinating 100 firms and more than 3,000 professionals spreading across six time zones. Doing so without the ability to meet in person for long stretches forced everyone involved to rethink how they worked together. 

Kenneth Ma Tak Yuen, Deputy Managing Director at Hip Hing Engineering, the contractor responsible for turning Populous' designs into reality, explains how the team adapted. “The pandemic forced us to rethink our delivery methods entirely. We implemented BIM360 and ran integrated online simulations to resolve clashes, long before they became costly problems on site. That collaborative digital strategy kept the project on track when physical meetings were simply impossible, and it played a significant part in delivering this enormous project on schedule.” 

“The team faced significant challenges during the pandemic, including labour shortages, factory shutdowns, and delays in material shipments. With the project delivery date fixed, we had to adopt innovative solutions to keep construction progressing. We established additional factories to enable concurrent production and recover lost time, chartered extra vessels to mitigate delays caused by quarantine requirements, and implemented flexible administrative arrangements to support our multinational team of designers and experts. These measures collectively played a crucial role in the successful delivery of the project.” 

Despite the obstacles, Kai Tak Sports Park opened on time in March 2025, a fact that speaks to the discipline and adaptability of everyone from the architects and engineers through to the thousands of workers on site. 

Inclusively we lead 

The QBA 2026 recognition reflects a deep commitment to inclusive design that runs through the entire precinct. The facilities are open 365 days a year, giving residents free access to grounds for jogging, fitness classes and casual games regardless of whether a major event is taking place elsewhere on site. That everyday accessibility goes hand-in-hand with the park's role as an elite sporting venue, and reconciling those two identities within a single masterplan was arguably the project's most delicate balancing act. 

Looking at what the finished precinct has delivered for the city, Breslin is confident about its significance: “Kai Tak Sports Park has taken what was an underutilised area of Hong Kong and given it back to the community to enjoy. It is a city-shaping asset that we have been instrumental in designing," he noted at the park's opening ceremony. 

Kai Tak Sports Park is already breaking records, with the Stadium topping ticket sales in Asia and ranking third worldwide. The precinct is well placed to keep building on the momentum of its first eighteen months. For a district long overlooked amid Hong Kong's wider economic growth, that legacy may prove just as valuable as any individual award.

Client: Hong Kong Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau

Contracted Party (Design, Build and Operate): Kai Tak Sports Park Limited 

Design and Build Contractor: Hip Hing Engineering Co. Ltd. 

Venue Operator: Legends Global 

Design Architect/Lead Designer: Populous Limited 

Executive Architect: Simon Kwan & Associates Ltd. 

Landscape Architect: ADI Limited 

Civil, Structural & Geotechnical Engineer: Arup 

Construction Methodology & Erection Sequencing: Robert Bird Group 

Mechanical & Electrical Engineer: Arup 

Sustainability Consultant: Arup 

Traffic, Fire engineering, Façades, Acoustics, Audio-Visual, Sports lighting, Advanced Digital Engineering, Security and Environmental Consultant: Arup