Populous
Whether it’s making premium sections more appealing, developing a new approach to scoreboards, or even finding innovative ways to mitigate the heat, architects continue to get creative with design elements to set their sports facilities apart.
“It’s about getting people off the couch and into the neighborhood and into their building,” said Mike Kress, founder and chief architect with Generator Studio. “And if you do it right, you create an icon, a signature element for the ballpark and the team.”
Kress and Tom Proebstle, another Generator Studio founder and the firm’s design director, said a unique design concept can bring new life and revenue to a laggard part of a stadium. They point to Generator’s work for the Class AAA Fresno Grizzlies, where they are converting a sun-drenched, often empty outfield section into a 500-person bar and social area shaded by a 1,900-square-foot roof.
“We’re taking out three seating sections for 1,000 people and chilled those seats so we can open a standing-room-only section open to the public,” Kress said.
That section is under construction and slated to be finished in September. The logic is that 500 fans spending money on food and drink is better than 1,000 mostly empty seats, Kress said.
Proebstle said finding ways to customize and localize spaces puts facilities in sync with their market. “They need to compete with the local social scene, the neighborhood around them.”
It’s about getting people off the couch and into the neighorhood and into their building.
Mike Kress
Founder and Chief Architect, Generator Studio
That has shown up in food and bar areas featuring local craft beers and hometown chefs, but it’s also shown up in retail stores on site. Generator, for example, designed a Rank+Rally retail shop at Barclays Center that features local Brooklyn fashion designers. It also designed a new team shop at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., that has beach and fishing themed items.
Other architects are looking at ways to make lucrative premium sections more appealing.
Architect David Manica, principal with Manica Architecture in Kansas City, is developing “business class” premium-seat options at the Raiders’ new stadium under construction in Las Vegas that built on the premium seating found at the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium. Manica said the business-class seats will recline and have the comforts of a first-class or business-class airline seat. He sees the concept growing into more premium leather seats with television screens and adapters to charge smartphones.
Geoff Cheong, an architect with Populous, said he is looking at a new overhead scoreboard concept as part of the $650 million renovation of KeyArena for the expected NHL expansion team in Seattle. Cheong said that instead of having a single scoreboard over center ice, he’s looking at having a scoreboard over each goal. “That is where more of the action is. It is where fans are paying attention,” said Cheong, who specializes in hockey projects.
Gerardo Prado, sports group director and a vice president at architecture firm HNTB, is designing a 2,000-seat supporters section at the planned 20,000-seat stadium for the Sacramento Republic. Sacramento is vying for a Major League Soccer expansion spot.
Prado said the section will have a steep design to be more imposing and concentrated. It also will have a dedicated plaza and entrance for those in the team’s hard-core supporters club.
“We did meet with the supporters groups and we did ask them what they wanted to see in the supporters sections, what would make them want to come,” Prado said.
Another Populous architect — senior principal Jon Knight -— is part of the design team finding ways to mitigate the extreme summer heat at a proposed stadium for the USL Phoenix Rising FC. The $250 million, 21,000-seat stadium could have shade curtains to hang over seats during the day when the stadium is not in use, keeping the stadium cooler for when fans arrive later for evening games.
Scott Capstack, design director and principal with Populous, said the curtains would resemble those used to partition areas and courts at arenas and gymnasiums. “If we aren’t going to put a roof on this building, we have to have creative solutions,” Capstack said.
The stadium would also include misting systems and “water walls” that incorporate evaporative cooling into the stadium. “It’s trying to just take a waterfall if you will and apply it to a man-made condition,” he said.
Populous is designing the stadium with architecture firm Gould Evans. It’s the centerpiece of Phoenix Rising’s aspiration to land an MLS expansion spot.
