Some proposed designs for the new Atlanta Falcons stadium have been released, and I can’t say it any better than Deadspin:
The Prospective Designs For The Atlanta Falcons’ New Stadium Are Crazy
Though SBNation’s headline is pretty good, too:
Atlanta Falcons stadium concepts hail from planet Zorbinon
It’s not exactly clear what’s going on in some of these images, except that both designs have roofs that open and close in equally bizarre ways, and in one the seats move around so that they’re closer to the court for basketball, and there’s something about “football in the round” because apparently before this football was only viewable from one side, and OH MY GOD THAT VIDEO SCREEN IS COMING TO CRUSH THE FANS LIKE BUGS.
Also, seats that vibrate when the players make tackles, because the problem with going to see football games is they’re not enough like Sensurround.
It’s pretty unlikely the final stadium design will look much like any of these conceptual renderings because they look 1) absurdly expensive and 2) absurdly absurd, but if any of these items do survive, they’ll make nice targets for all the teams with state-of-the-art clauses in their leases requiring them to have whatever all the other teams have. Not to mention for the Minnesota Vikings, who are planning a stadium design announcement tomorrow and have promised “a bold, iconic, geometric structure with long sloping, angular facets that are primarily directed toward the downtown Minneapolis skyline,” but who are clearly going to have to up the ante if they don’t want all the other kids pointing and laughing at their project at recess tomorrow.
Ooh, we’re going back to a basketball court in the exact center of the stadium and pretending you can slide in the entire upper deck endzones with stairwells / restrooms /etc . Are the Hawks moving in ?
Also love the mock-ups. Didn’t Atlanta just have the Final Four? Shouldn’t they know that a clock reading 29:58 makes no sense in a college basketball game?
Also, looking over the financials for the GWCC, they get about $20M/year from suites/seat license. In the new agreement, that money goes entirely to Blank. That $20M/yr is also aout the same as the current revenue from the hotel/motel tax, which will be going to help Blank build his stadium.
Arthur Blank is worth $1.6B. So why exactly is he getting $40M/year in subsidies?
Sliding concourses have been around for a while at Super Saitama Arena in Japan.
I stand corrected by Ben Miller. Entirely plausible. And that Japanese example was only 20 billion Japanese Yen in 2000, which I think is like $200 million USD or less.
Actually, there are some things to like about the origami model. The panels are smaller than the typical retractable roof. So, they should move faster and put less strain on the boggies moving them. They are also interesting architecturally.
The bad is mostly that it is a roof designed to leak. How many years did it take to stop the rain from coming into Miller Park with the roof closed? Square that with this design. The shadows that roof will cast will make a cameraman (or camerawoman) miss old Texas Stadium.
I found the scoreboard (in the round) to be an interesting trend. It has the advantage that no high paying seats need to be removed to make room for 4 corner scoreboards. It kind-of takes the ribbon-board concept and expands it. There is also nothing blocking the view of the field unlike Jerry-World. However, constantly looking up at the scoreboard might cause a neck strain.
But, they’ve solved stiff necks too with this concept. Sensurround (TM) seating is sure to loosen up the old neck with every linebacker hit to the quarterback. OK, the seats are silly. I can’t even come up with a reason for that, other than it’s different and no one else has it (for good reason). Of course they can sell Sensurround seating for a high price (until the system fails – like the heating at Candlestick).
And, the center closing area should really be described as an annulus. They didn’t use that term because I guess the good citizens of Atlanta might be offended at what they will be sitting inside of.
Sensurround was a registered trademark of Cerwin-Vega and Universal Studios, if anyone cares.
Still no holographic displays? WTF??????
For the retractable barn – Anyone else notice the general lack of signage and videoboards (and scoreboards) in the rendering? If the split Coke signs are truly signage, then there are no videoboards shown in the entire rendering. Really solves the problem of how to keep from blocking seats. Of course basketball will be truly interesting without any clock. Even the fascia of the seating levels don’t seem to be wide enough to support anything but small ribbon boards.
Obviously this is just the demo version (and never believe the demo). The true renderings have some interesting trade-offs to make.
The renderings may have been done by the same people responsible for these http://www.sonicsarena.com/news/to-all-the-green-gold-faithful .
I thought the scoreboard was left out because the “upper ring” tiers would have obstructed views but maybe it’s just a part of the “how to put out renderings” rules.