www.psam.uk.com
showcase architecture
Call for proposals
In December 2012, discussions advanced with the Atlanta Falcons NFL football team, the Georgia World Congress Center and the City of Atlanta in a tri-party agreement and memorandum of understanding to seek and select an architectural team for a new stadium design. Qualifications were submitted from multiple architects specialising in sports stadium design. The field was narrowed down to five through a two-stage process that led up to formal presentations in April 2013.
Knowing the stakes were high and the competition stiff, with the likes of HKS, Ewing Cole, Populous, Gensler and 360 Architecture all garnering interviews, each team presented their versions of potential design solutions alongside their qualifications. In the end, 360 Architecture’s approach and concept prevailed based on a stadium design that was intended to be a departure from the norm.
360 Architecture is a US-based design firm headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Recent global recognition has come to 360 from their designs on the substantially complete Basra Sports City Complex featuring new 60,000 seat and 10,000 seat FIFA regulation stadiums in Iraq and the Edmonton Oilers’ new NHL arena in Alberta, Canada.
“We worked on ideas for months leading up to the interview. Nobody could engage the client in advance. It was risky, but our team took the opportunity to develop what we believed was a
game changer in Atlanta,” says Bill Johnson, AIA, Senior Principal and Founding Partner at 360.
Maintaining status as the designers for the most current operating NFL venue with MetLIfe Stadium located in the Metropolitan New York, 360 Architecture understood that team owners sought to create an identity through stadium design. To create a unique identity in Atlanta, Johnson believed the solution necessitated tossing aside conventional practices.
“Embracing change became a theme for our team. We set out to re-imagine the game-day experience. By rejecting current thinking we freed ourselves to go in different directions for stadium aesthetics, functions and systems,” adds Johnson.
What if
Allowing themselves to challenge conventional stadium philosophies, the 360 Architecture team, led by Johnson, enlisted the support of Buro Happold, WSP Flack & Kurtz and inventor Chuck Hoberman to help break the mould and re-envision what a modern NFL stadium could become. This core team prepared leading up to the interview with a series of workshops, charettes and calls between New York and Kansas City.
Armed with limited scope based off bid documents essentially listing desired features and amenities, 360 challenged the design team with some blue-sky questioning. They posed ‘what if’ scenarios that challenged conventional
notions of current stadium design and construction practices. This thought process was reproduced during the team’s interview presentation to help reveal the motifs behind 360’s concepts. Their ‘big idea’ centred on a new retractable roof solution. Initial inspiration was found in the Atlanta Falcons logo.
Given direction in Atlanta for an iconic expression with a retractable roof, 360 formulated a strategy that integrated a radiating geometric retractable roof concept that extended into the building massing and exterior envelope concepts.
Redefining a retractable roof
The stadium roof structure is being designed by Buro Happold’s New York office led by Senior Principal Erleen Hatfield. Buro Happold is a global engineering firm, specialising in stadium projects. Buro Happold, also the lead structural engineer for Atlanta, provided engineering on the London 2012 Olympic stadium, the Sochi Central Stadium for the 2014 Winter Olympics and arenas and stadiums around the world.
During the initial concept workshops held in preparation for their design finalist interview, 360 and Buro Happold enlisted the support of engineer and inventor Chuck Hoberman. Hoberman, a specialist in transformable design whose resume includes toy creations, artistic sculptures and kinetic architecture from buildings to the morphic claw stage structure used
21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53