When sports teams travel to a game, they battle fatigue, strange surroundings, and thousands of hostile, roaring fans. The home team meanwhile, rested, confident in their city and familiar with the facility, rides the fan energy that rocks their building when they step onto the field or court.
Home advantage can play a significant role in game outcomes. Players talk about it, coaches plan for it, Vegas odds makers calculate it. Team owners even ask architects to maximize it.
Here are six ways AEC firms can help create the conditions that draw big crowds, energize the home team to perform better, and disrupt visiting players:
1. Bring the fans in close
The closer the fans are, the more the players hear the noise, see the enthusiasm, and feel the energy. Venues can be designed to place stands as close to the court or field as possible, and steep-pitched seating bowls can bring the back rows closer to the action. The result: home teams feel the energy of the crowd as an extra player, while visiting teams must battle the added aural and visual distraction.
At JELD-WEN Field, seating extends to within fifteen feet of the pitch, and many fans stand and cheer virtually the entire game. After the Timbers’ home opener victory, head coach John Spencer said, “I don’t think you’ve seen an atmosphere like that in American soccer history. Ever. I think it was tremendous.”
2. Make it loud
Acoustic design maximizes the crowd’s ability to drown the opposing team in roaring noise, disrupt their communication and intimidate them. CenturyLink Field, home of the NFL Seattle Seahawks, has been dubbed the “loudest stadium in the NFL” thanks to a design that focuses crowd noise onto the field.
Foot stomping on the steel stands has been recorded by seismographs at comparable levels to a mini-earthquake. Over a 10-year period, there were 143 false-start penalties on visiting teams in Seattle, the most of any open-air stadium. During the home opener against the San Francisco 49ers on September 15, 2013, CenturyLink will be the site of an attempt sponsored by a fan group to break the Guinness World Record for loudest stadium crowd.
3. Make it easy to get there
How easily fans can travel to a venue is a big factor in filling the seats. Placing the venue in a centralized location well served by mass transit makes it more accessible. Brooklyn’s new sports and entertainment destination, Barclays Center, is one of the few urban venues in the U.S. with no dedicated parking. Instead, the arena can be reached by 11 subway lines, the Long Island Rail Road, and 11 bus lines. In their first season at Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Nets traded years at the isolated, and largely empty, Meadowlands Arena (and a two-year stint in Newark) for a packed house in a hot spot—and their first winning season in seven years.
In downtown Portland, Oregon, JELD-WEN Field, home of the MLS Portland Timbers, also has no dedicated parking, but receives extra service from the local metro system on game days. To sweeten the deal, season tickets—which have sold out every year since the renovated stadium opened and have a waiting list of thousands—include a transit pass.
4. Make it the place to be
More people in the building means more energy. Barclays Center demonstrates the difference between a typical sporting venue and an urban focal point where sports are the anchoring attraction. Home to the NBA Brooklyn Nets and soon the NHL New York Islanders, Barclays Center was designed to include amenities that broaden the appeal — four bar-lounges, three clubs, and the 40/40 CLUB & Restaurant by American Express make the venue a hotspot for nightlife and keep the place buzzing with celebrities and fans. In the Nets’ first season in the new facility, ticket sales increased 23 percent over the previous year, jumping from dead last over half of the teams in the league.
5. Make the home team feel at home
The quality of team amenities like locker rooms and training facilities makes a big difference in a team’s morale and self-image, which players carry into the field and into every play. Ultra-modern technology, high-end design finishes, and institutional identity imagery all contribute to athletes’ sense of belonging—in a facility, in a tradition, and in contention for their league’s highest honors. When the University of Oregon created the Matthew Knight Arena to replace a legendary basketball temple, it was critical that the facility modernize to the utmost while embodying the legacy of the previous building and the Ducks.
6. Get people excited
Venues that combine iconic architecture, local flavor and active public spaces give fans a stronger sense of connection and excitement. The dramatic post-Hurricane Katrina restoration of the Louisiana (now Mercedes-Benz) Superdome in New Orleans forever connected city and venue, building a reputation as one of the toughest away-game locations in the NFL. In 2010 the owners went a step further, adding Champions Square, a new public space conceived as the venue’s “front porch.” Designed in the tradition of New Orleans’ famous public squares, Champion Square hosts concerts prior to games, with the street festival atmosphere brewing excitement until fans fill the stadium and create what has been called the best home field advantage in the NFL.
Related Stories
| May 17, 2011
Sustainability tops the syllabus at net-zero energy school in Texas
Texas-based firm Corgan designed the 152,200-sf Lady Bird Johnson Middle School in Irving, Texas, with the goal of creating the largest net-zero educational facility in the nation, and the first in the state. The facility is expected to use 50% less energy than a standard school.
| May 17, 2011
Gilbane partners with Steel Orca on ultra-green data center
Gilbane, along with Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, has been selected to partner with Steel Orca to design and build a 300,000-sf data center in Bucks County, Pa., that will be powered entirely through renewable energy sources--gas, solar, fuel cells, wind and geo-thermal. Completion is scheduled for 2013.
| May 17, 2011
Should Washington, D.C., allow taller buildings?
Suggestions are being made that Washington revise its restrictions on building heights. Architect Roger Lewis, who raised the topic in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, argues for a modest relaxation of the height limits, and thinks that concerns about ruining the city’s aesthetics are unfounded.
| May 17, 2011
The New Orleans master plan
At an afternoon panel during last week's AIA National Conference in New Orleans, Goody Clancy Principal David Dixon and Manning Principal W. Raymond Manning shared their experiences creating the New Orleans Master Plan, a document that sets a new course for the city, from land use and transportation planning to environmental protection.
| May 17, 2011
Do these buildings look like buffalo to you?
It’s hard to contemplate winter now that we’re mid-spring, but when the seasons change, ice skaters in Winnipeg will be able to keep warm in plywood shelters designed by Patkau Architects. The designers created temporary shelters inspired by animal behavior—specifically, buffalo bracing against the wind. Check them out.
| May 16, 2011
USGBC and AIA unveil report for greening K-12 schools
The U.S. Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects unveiled "Local Leaders in Sustainability: A Special Report from Sundance," which outlines a five-point national action plan that mayors and local leaders can use as a framework to develop and implement green schools initiatives.
| May 16, 2011
Dassault Systèmes to distribute Gehry Technologies’ digital project
Dassault Systèmes and Gehry Technologies announced that Gehry Technologies’ Digital Project products will be integrated into the Dassault Systèmes’ portfolio and distributed through Dassault Systèmes. Digital Project is a suite of 3D BIM applications created by Gehry Technologies using Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA as a core modeling engine.
| May 11, 2011
DOE releases guide for 50% more energy-efficient office buildings
The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the release of the first in a new series of Advanced Energy Design Guides to aid in the design of highly energy efficient office buildings. The 50% AEDG series will provide a practical approach to commercial buildings designed to achieve 50% energy savings compared to the commercial building energy code used in many areas of the country.
| May 10, 2011
Google hires Ingenhoven Architects to design new Mountain View office
The current Googleplex is straining at the seams and yet the company is preparing its biggest hiring surge ever, so Google decided now’s the time to build its own office space—a first for the Internet giant. The company hired Ingenhoven Architects, a German firm that specializes in sustainable architecture, to create plans for what could be a 600,000-sf office.
| May 10, 2011
Solar installations on multifamily rooftops aid social change
The Los Angeles Business Council's study on the feasibility of installing solar panels on the city’s multifamily buildings shows there's tremendous rooftop capacity, and that a significant portion of that rooftop capacity comes from buildings in economically depressed neighborhoods. Solar installations could therefore be used to create jobs, lower utility costs, and improve conditions for residents in these neighborhood.
