In 2004, the government of the city of Hohhot, the capital of the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, embarked on creating a new facility that includes a 6,000-seat competition arena, an athletic training facility, an exhibition center, an indoor tennis/fitness club and a commercial retail center.
The site features a welcoming landscaped garden frontage that includes a public park. The design makes the most efficient use of land available for the project by locating the athletic facilities above the conference center. This allowed a significant portion of the site to be developed as a city park and also provide adequate space for parking and outdoor athletic facilities.
The most important part of any successful arena is comfortable seating with excellent sightlines, and in Inner Mongolia Arena, all seats are accessed from the top level, so there are no cross-aisles and minimal obstructions to impair views. The variety of spaces and arrangement of these spaces within the facility will support its financial viability.
Grading the site to allow access to the two levels of the building at multiple locations maximized the interaction between activities inside the building and outdoors. The sculpting of the land also integrates the building design with the site and creates a relationship between the facility and the typical landforms of the region — the rolling grasslands of Inner Mongolia.