Government and its aid buildings: The governmental influence on the design and management of China-aided stadium projects after 2000

The number of China-aided stadium projects has greatly increased since 2000, along with new working models and architectural characteristics. As government-financed construction projects, these stadiums could not escape the influence of the Chinese government. This study aims to explore such influence on the design and management processes of China-aided stadium projects after 2000 and identify their variations and characteristics through an interview-based study using statistical and qualitative text analysis methods. The results show that the governmental influence exists, and various processes received different degrees of influences from the Chinese government, among which the pre-design, design and tender and bid processes receive more. Such influences are generated through various approaches including the official setup of the pre-design process, the requirement to use Chinese building codes (standard), the strict control of investment costs, the compulsory guiding principles for design, and the opacity of the bid evaluation, etc. This research represents new knowledge to link the political aspects with the architectural outcomes, generates references for future oversea projects and concludes to better understand the implementation model of the China-aided construction system.