The award winning design focuses on two simple concepts: color and form. The design connects the geometry of the soccer ball and the colors of the local team. The stadium is home to the K.A.A. Gent soccer team, and the design incorporates the team’s signature color in ambient blue light that reflects off the clean, mostly white surfaces.

Soccer balls appear in abstract three-dimensional graphics throughout the arena, but other logos are kept muted to avoid interrupting the stark color scheme. A series of tessellating acoustic ceiling tiles were designed with a shape reminiscent of the hexagonal pattern on a soccer ball, only with softened corners—that are suspended in cloud-like forms hovering over many of the stadium’s concourses.

Because ceiling heights vary under the stands, more than 10,000 hanging ceiling tiles establish a uniform height and create a sense of scale. They also help dampen noise in the vast, open areas, and conceal air ducts. The surface above the tiles was kept raw, but lit with blue uplights set on suspended tracks to flood it with color. White LED downlights balance out the hue, so the colors of the walkways below do not appear to be distorted.

The local sports community has quickly embraced the interior design, which takes an elevated approach to the colors and shapes they may have expected in a stadium. The players have said it’s more like a modern hotel.