AHer husband Pramod was surprised to see Suja playing on TV when the World Cup was being held in Brazil a year ago. Suja, who has no interest in football, wondered what had happened to him. “I don’t sleep in front of the TV to watch the game. To see the stadiums there.” Suja replied.
Suja, who was visiting stadiums in Brazil at that time, was met in front of the Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, where Argentina is playing. He is the design manager of the ‘A Com’ company that designed the World Cup stadium.
“Badminton was my favorite game as a child. Participated in state championships. Being from Ernakulam, I came to Qatar 22 years ago after completing engineering from Kozhikode REC. Here he has done villas and apartments as an architect in many companies. The question of whether the World Cup stadiums can be designed comes while being a design manager at A.Com. At first I was surprised but then I became confident. Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan should have been designed.
“Even if you just drop a stone into the void, it needs an artistic touch. That is the basis of the architect. Designing a new stadium with a capacity of 45,000 according to FIFA standards to replace the old 10,000-seat stadium in Al Rayyan was not an easy task. 80 percent of the materials from the demolished stadium were used for the new stadium.
In 2013, their team started designing the Ahmed Bin Stadium. By 2016, the old stadium was demolished. The construction of the new stadium started next year and will be completed in 2020. Husband Pramod works in Qatar. Sons Krishna are studying in England and Karthik is studying in America. The next project is to design a velodrome in Abu Dhabi for the Cycling World Cup. Meanwhile, Suja said one more thing: “I still don’t know anything about football, do you?” Suja said.