The Jewel of the New Santiago Bernabéu: Its Hypogeum

Besides having become one of the most modern and spectacular football stadiums in the world, the new Santiago Bernabéu is also a true engineering masterpiece thanks to its hypogeum.

Real Madrid’s stadium, opened in 1947, has undergone one of the most striking transformations in its long history with a latest redevelopment, approved in 2014, that has included a range of interventions such as:

• A retractable roof covering the stadium 55 metres above the pitch.
• An exterior façade envelope made of aluminium louvres.
• A fourth tier on the east stand with almost 2,800 new seats.
• A rooftop terrace with a range of hospitality services on the stadium’s highest level.
• A 360-degree video scoreboard.
• Operational control units and an audiovisual centre on level 10.
• A hypogeum, or underground “greenhouse”, to store and preserve the Bernabéu’s pitch when there is no match.

It is precisely the Santiago Bernabéu hypogeum that has attracted the most attention in this new redevelopment of the stadium. This underground greenhouse is crucially important for the new Bernabéu, as it will allow the stadium to be operational and multi-purpose without any worry about damaging the pitch, a fundamental asset for the club. The Bernabéu’s pitch is now retractable and is stored in this huge hypogeum, where it receives all the care it needs.

TALAT has contributed to this major engineering project for the Santiago Bernabéu Hypogeum by taking charge of a key element for pitch care: the design, execution and control of the climate control system that ensures ideal humidity and temperature conditions for the grass, preserving its growth and condition while it is housed in the 6 trays inside the hypogeum.

What is the Santiago Bernabéu hypogeum?

A hypogeum is an underground structure. In architecture, the term was already used in Ancient Greece to describe a vaulted underground construction built for preservation purposes. In botany, hypogeal also refers to the parts of plants that develop below the ground.

At the new Santiago Bernabéu, the hypogeum is the underground structure used to store the 6 turf trays that make up the pitch. It is a 30-metre-deep pit divided into 6 levels, where the turf trays, each measuring 105 m long by 11.6 m wide and weighing approximately 1,500 tonnes, are stacked vertically.

How does the Bernabéu’s retractable pitch work?

The structure of the Bernabéu pitch and the hypogeum that houses it is a combination of a storage system and a lifting system. When the turf is in place on the pitch, a skid picks up each tray and lifts it above the retractable lattice girders, releasing it from the wall; the girders are then withdrawn, and the lifting system lowers each tray to its assigned level, placing them one above the other. On each level there are folding brackets with neoprene bearings on which each tray rests.

In addition, a mobile truss (a lattice structure of bars connected in a triangulated system) has been installed between levels to water the turf trays, with access for a lawn mower under the supervision of Real Madrid’s groundskeeping team.

As a result, each level has the following maintenance systems:

• Irrigation and fertigation system to feed the grass.
• Modular infrared artificial lighting system adjustable to the grass’s growth stage.
• CO2 injection system to promote growth and photosynthesis.
• Ventilation and climate control system to achieve the temperature and humidity conditions required at each stage of the grass’s growth.

This underground vertical greenhouse at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium will keep the pitch stored away, safe from the stress caused by events or extreme weather, while receiving the care it needs for approximately 245 days a year.

TALAT’s role in building the hypogeum and caring for the Santiago Bernabéu pitch

At TALAT, we were responsible for the climate control of this huge underground greenhouse. It was no small challenge: this was a key part of the hypogeum for keeping the pitch in good condition, and it had to be developed and integrated taking into account the scale and circumstances of the structure, as well as the sustainability, innovation and efficiency goals that have defined the entire Santiago Bernabéu redevelopment.

Talat’s work involved designing the engineering project for the hypogeum’s climate control and coordinating its execution, following the client’s criteria and working simultaneously and in coordination with the other trades involved in building the hypogeum. To achieve proper coordination, we used BIM methodology, which makes it possible to coordinate, centralise and access the contributions and progress of every party involved in the design and construction phases. This allows information to be shared and the progress of the construction project to be tracked in real time. It is a collaborative method that optimises time and costs, among other benefits of working with BIM.

This was not the only innovative solution Talat brought to the development of the Bernabéu hypogeum. The climate control equipment was also integrated into a smart building management system (BMS). This not only improves efficiency through the BMS, but also enables automation and greater control over the hypogeum’s climate in a convenient, direct and easily accessible way.

At TALAT we are proud to contribute to projects as complex and innovative as the Santiago Bernabéu hypogeum, but we are open to all kinds of projects. Ç

Tell us about yours, and we are sure we will find a way to help you bring it to life.