Sporting Halls for the World Handball Championship in Croatia

The 21st men's World Handball championship took place in January 2009 in Croatia and six new sporting halls were constructed to host the event. Building according to public private partnership model was used in most cases and the entire investment was distinguished by very short deadlines. This required careful planning and coordination of all partners in the project faced with a major architectural, urban planning, structural and project management challenge. Following is a brief profile of two large halls in the Adriatic region - Spaladium Arena in Split and Kresimir Cosic sporting hall in Zadar - describing their planning, design and construction. The large hall of the Spaladium Arena has a seating capacity of 12 000, and the building includes reinforced concrete structural members that support steel space truss roof. Kresimir Cosic sports hall in Zadar is a unique domed structure combining prestressed ring base, reinforced concrete thin shell and tubular steel truss in the upper portion of the roof. Even under major constraints, the sporting halls were successfully completed on time to host the matches, and were viewed by players, spectators and the press as a spectacular setting for the world handball championship.