( CNN ) -- It 's the latest landmark on Singapore 's already busy skyline . It features a 55,000 seater stadium , swimming pool complex and water sports facilities . It 's also the winner of a World Architecture award and is described by the projects chief operating officer as less of a venue and more of `` a brand new city . '' Welcome to Singapore 's Sports Hub , which opened in June at a cost of more than $ 1 billion . This 350,000 square meter site , in one of the most land scarce countries in the world , is the result of a government driven initiative to firmly place Singapore on the global events calendar . It also hopes to get citizens moving and involved in all manner of sporting activities . According to Jonathan Rose , principal of design firm Aecom , the project has raised the bar in terms of its look , feel and goals . `` Sports Hub really is setting a completely new standard for how major sports infrastructure is being integrated to the community and ... the life of the city , '' Rose said . Inside , the main venue is decorated in a patriotic red and white , the national colors of Singapore . For COO , Oon Jin Teik , the building was designed to be versatile as well as symbol of national pride . `` Singapore is not a one sport nation , '' Oon said . As such , the sports hub will cater for football , athletics , rugby , cricket and even concerts under one giant roof . At 310 meters across the distinctive roof is the largest free spanning dome in the world . `` It takes away the heat , the direct sunlight , it takes away the heavy rain , '' Oon said . But it also does more than that . A 200 meter by 100 meter section of super lightweight steel can be moved on demand , taking 22 minutes to open and close . The traditional air conditioning system featured at similar retractable roof venues , meanwhile , has been replaced by an innovative bowl cooling system . These nifty features bring a host of benefits unseen elsewhere . `` You can sell tickets for banks of seats and then you can switch on the cooling for different banks of seats , '' said lead architect , Clive Lewis . `` In that way you reduce the energy by a sixth ... of the energy you would use to cool a conventional closed stadium . '' But while the design may lead towards the environmentally friendly it also creates some unique challenges -- including grass that is n't quite the normal shade of green yet . As described by Oon , `` at different parts of the pitch the humidity is different , the wind is different , and therefore soil conditions are different . '' The Sports Hub has suffered its share of embarrassment because of its sandy pitch in recent months . But there are signs a solution may be in sight . `` We found that we needed a more even blend of regular sunlight all the time , '' Oon said . `` We want to get it right more badly than our harshest critic . '' That 's required the stadium operators to adapt their plans for the facility . Luckily for them , the engineering flexibility afforded by the stadiums high tech design allows fine tuning for long term success .
The Singapore Sports Hub is a new stadium and events complex in the Southeast Asian country . The project comes in at a cost of more than $ 1 billion dollars . Sports Hub has not been short of challenges including struggles with the quality of the stadium playing surface .