Archinect - News

AECOM's $2 billion Intuit Dome opens in fast-changing Inglewood

2024-08-13T20:09:00-04:00

The landscape for professional sports in Los Angeles has for generations been defined by icons such as Dodger Stadium, Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena), the Rose Bowl, and LA Coliseum.

This week, AECOM’s new Intuit Dome debuts in Inglewood, adding to that tradition. The $1.8 billion project, by many measures one of the most artistic sports venue designs in recent memory, includes 17,700 seats and comes replete with an 80,000-square-foot outdoor plaza area created by City Design Studio with landscaping from Walter Hood.

Image courtesy Los Angeles Clippers

The first permanent home for the LA Clippers was designed to entice fans with an unprecedented gameday experience as highlighted by its centerpiece 38,375-square-foot (nearly one acre) wraparound LED Halo Board — a new record-holder for indoor arenas worldwide. (It has over 233 million LEDs!)

Image courtesy Los Angeles Clippers

Viewed from the outside, the arena appears encased in an interwoven red diagrid steel frame with diam...

New construction video highlights AECOM's nearly complete Intuit Dome in Inglewood

2023-07-19T13:35:00-04:00

Following reports of its topping out in March, the AECOM-designed Intuit Dome, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers, is taking shape ahead of its expected completion in 2024.

A new video depicts the status of the project as of June 2023, where its standout steel frame with diagrid geometry can be seen wrapping the structure. This building skin is formed from a series of diamond-shaped, interwoven metal panels with multiple uses. According to the architects, the frame was inspired by the form of a basketball net as a ball passes through it.

A vast array of solar panels can also be spotted on the structure’s roof. Intuit Dome is set to operate 100% carbon-free, powered fully by batteries and solar power. The design team, alongside the Clippers organization, worked towards initiatives that will earn the stadium a LEED Platinum certification.

The $1.2 billion, 18,000-seat arena will be the centerpiece of a larger mixed-use project, including an 85,000-square-foot training faci...

Women-led project team breaks ground on the Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance

2023-04-03T14:47:00-04:00

Seattle welcomes a new basketball performance center that won't just be a "world-class facility" but a space to support, foster, and train female professional athletes. Four-time WNBA champions, the Seattle Storm, celebrated an important milestone as their 50,000-square-foot Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance broke ground on Monday, March 27.

While it's said to "be the first facility of its kind in the United States," what makes this endeavor even more notable is that its project team is 85% female-led, across five firms and practices specializing in architecture, landscape architecture, construction, and real estate.

Female design and engineering team photographed at Seattle Storm Center for Basketball Performance's groundbreaking. Image courtesy of ZGF Architects/Shive-Hattery Architects

Participating design team ZGF Architects shared: "The goal was to build a world-class facility for world-class female athletes — with women-led teams who are experts in their field."...

LA's Crypto.com Arena is getting a 'nine-figure' overhaul courtesy of Gensler and MEIS

2022-08-24T15:07:00-04:00

AEG has announced a new “nine-figure” overhaul of Los Angeles’ iconic renamed Crypto.com Arena (formerly The Staples Center) and adjacent L.A. LIVE pedestrian mall in a two-year project that promises to “provide fans with entirely new ways to experience their favorite sports and music event” once it is completed in 2024.

Urbanize LA has more on the planned renovations, which include a new entrance at the concourse level, added restaurant offerings, LED displays, reimagined City View Terrace, upgraded locker rooms, and the creation of new private suites and a multi-level Tunnel Cub said to be reserved for the arena’s many nightly VIP guests.

Image courtesy AEG

Ron Turner (Gensler) and Dan Meis (MEIS), the two architects who worked on the original Staples Center project 25 years ago, will return to oversee the construction, which they say is meant to provide fans with an enhanced entertainment experience for the next three decades.

Image courtesy AEG

“As one of the ...

Concrete frame at LA Clippers' new Intuit Dome arena tops out

2022-08-05T15:28:00-04:00

The AECOM-Hunt Turner joint venture is celebrating the topping out of the Intuit Dome’s concrete frame, the future home of the Los Angeles Clippers.

According to Turner, more than 200,000 hours of work were performed by 350 workers to complete the frame. During construction, 65,000 cubic yards of concrete were placed, and 6,600 concrete mix truck deliveries were completed. The largest foundation pour was 2,572 cubic yards, and the largest deck pour was 980 cubic yards.

Previously on Archinect: The Los Angeles Clippers break ground on $1.8 billion Intuit Dome

“What our construction team has achieved in the last six months is incredible,” said Rames Sundaram, Project Executive at Turner. “Our first foundation was poured on January 12th, and our last deck pour is on July 27th. So, in just six short months, we have completed what normally takes nine months of work. Really amazing!”

According to Turner Vice President Michael Marchesano, the swift completion of the concrete frame has en...

The Staples Center has been renamed to Crypto.com Arena

2021-11-18T16:04:00-05:00

Staples Center is getting a new name for Christmas: Crypto.com Arena. The downtown Los Angeles venue — home of the Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks — will wear the new name for 20 years under a deal between the Singapore cryptocurrency exchange and AEG, the owner and operator of the arena, both parties announced Tuesday. Crypto.com paid more than $700 million for the naming rights, according to sources familiar with the terms, making it one of the biggest naming deals in sports history.

The arena’s new logo will debut on December 25th, and all of the Staples Center signage will be replaced by June 2022. The partnership between AEG and Crypto.com may see the integration of cryptocurrency and online payment into the arena. A 3,300-square-foot section at the entrance of the arena will become a dedicated Crypto.com “activation space” that will feature crypto-centric interactive experiences.

Gensler selected for new UW college basketball training facility in Seattle

2021-11-18T11:53:00-05:00

An ambitious new athletic facility for the University of Washington’s men’s and women’s basketball programs has got the ball rolling thanks to a design from Gensler.

The newly-approved Basketball Training & Operations Facility and Health & High Performance Center is seen as an enhancement of student-athlete life as well as a potential recruiting tool, for a program that has recently missed its shot to attract and retain several high-level future pros.

The project is being paid for entirely through private donations to UW’s athletics program, a fact that is especially welcome at a time when the university’s funds are in much greater need in other areas of campus life.

The facility will be installed on the current site of the historic Hec Edmundson Pavilion, one of America's oldest college gyms, and will include state-of-the-art new practice courts, locker rooms, dedicated film study rooms, player lounges, and something called an “enhanced performance center.”

In related Gensler Spor...

The Los Angeles Clippers break ground on $1.8 billion Intuit Dome

2021-09-20T15:41:00-04:00

The design meetings have been going on for years. Technology has evolved throughout the process. Painstaking decisions were made time and time again, right down to what an inch or two difference in leg room between rows would mean or where cupholders should be affixed to the seats. Finally, Steve Ballmer and the LA Clippers are ready to build their new home.

Four years after announcing plans to relocate from the Staples Center, the Los Angeles Clippers have broken ground on their long-awaited $1.8 billion, privately funded arena. It will be named Intuit Dome, as part of a 23-year naming rights agreement with Intuit, Inc. The 18,000-seat, AECOM-designed arena is scheduled to open in time for the 2024-2025 NBA season.

Through this partnership, Intuit and the Clippers plan to establish programs to reinvigorate the local economy, such as a commitment by Intuit to provide $1 million over the next three years to underserved school districts that are part of a program providing financial education to students. Intuit has also committed to providing free tax preparation services for low-income families in the area.

Previously on Archinect: Plans for LA Clippers arena in Inglewood move ahead

In addition, the Clippers have agreed to an estimated $260 million community benefits package, the largest ever associated with an arena.

LA Clippers Arena: Inglewood City Council approves environmental report

2020-07-22T18:36:00-04:00

The Clippers’ plans for a billion-dollar arena complex moved closer to reality Tuesday after Inglewood’s City Council voted unanimously to approve the environmental impact report for the project. The approval came seven months after the release of the report, which spanned thousands of pages and required nearly two years to complete [...].

Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Clippers

According to the Los Angeles Times, concerns over gentrification brought forward by local groups opposing the 18,000-seat Clippers Arena and nearby NFL SoFi Stadium development were ruled out by the report.

AECOM is the architect of the $1.2 billion arena complex proposal for the Steve Ballmer-owned NBA team.

Atlanta's State Farm Arena to become Georgia's largest voting center

2020-07-01T17:54:00-04:00

Atlanta's State Farm Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks professional basketball team, is being converted into a massive polling site to help the state of Georgia make voting more accessible to its residents.

CNN reports that the 17,000-seat arena will open as a polling center for the forthcoming August 11 runoff election and for the November election starting on November 3rd, when early voting begins. Aside from offering generous voting facilities for these elections, the stadium's 1,500 parking spots will also be made available for use by residents while they vote.

The arena was originally designed by Arquitectonica in 1998 and was renovated in 2018 by HOK.

The move comes as convention centers and sporting arenas around the country increasingly take on flexible uses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other significant events.

Plans for LA Clippers arena in Inglewood move ahead

2020-01-03T14:27:00-05:00

Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved fast-tracking the billion-dollar arena complex the Clippers want to build in Inglewood, as plans for the project continue to advance. [...] The Madison Square Garden Co., which owns the Forum less than two miles away, called the arena plan “deeply flawed” and pledged to continue its fight against the project.

Designs for the proposed $1.2 billion basketball arena by AECOM were first unveiled in July last year.

"The Clippers, owned by billionaire Steve Ballmer, will install 330 electric vehicle chargers at the arena, fund 1,000 residential chargers in the surrounding area, purchase two electric buses and 10 electric vehicles for Inglewood’s municipal fleet, and plant 1,000 trees as part of its agreement with CARB," Daily Breeze reports. "The arena is expected to meet a Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program."

Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Clippers

If approved and completed, the 18,000-seat venue would become the new Inglewood home of the Los Angeles Clippers, just in time for the 2024-25 NBA season and coinciding with the end of the team's lease with its current home, the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles.

The planned arena is located near the currently under-construction Los Angeles Rams football stadium designed by HKS...

LeBron James will transform historic building into housing for students of his 'I Promise School'

2019-11-05T12:11:00-05:00

LeBron James is adding safe housing to the school he founded in his hometown, so students have a stable place to live while they get their education. The NBA star announced Monday that a historic apartment building in Akron, Ohio, is being renovated and turned into transitional housing for families in need at his I Promise School.

"Initially, our work was focused on helping these kids earn an education. But we've found that it is impossible to help them learn if they are struggling to survive — if they are hungry, if they have no heat in the freezing winter, if they live in fear for their safety," said James, according to CNN.

Graduate Hotels will renovate the Lynman R. Walker-designed Tudor Revival apartment building before donating it to the school. It is scheduled to open in July for the next school year, reports CNN.

John King reviews the new Golden State Warriors arena in San Francisco

2019-10-22T16:30:00-04:00

The best thing about Chase Center, the new $1.6 billion home of the Golden State Warriors, is the main attraction — that raucous enclosed oval where upward of 18,000 people can gather to watch the action. It’s a pure immersion in the moment, both lively and comfortable enough to atone for the confusing, though often satisfying, jumble of spaces elsewhere within the silvery orb

Can a sports stadium be at once populist and high-end?

The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic John King finds a sort of balance at the new Chase Center, designed by Manica Architecture on an 11-acre site that includes design contributions from SHoP, Perkins and Will (Pfau Long), and SWA.

King writes, "From the time the Warriors announced in 2012 their intent to return to San Francisco, Welts insisted that a key priority was to make longtime fans feel at home. During the time the players are on the court, slam dunk." That is, despite seating that is a bit too steeply raked and a "comical" collection of giant scoreboards. "Equally important," King adds, "the Warriors’ compound is a genuinely inviting addition to the Mission Bay landscape."

"Each element enriches the overall sense of place," King concludes, "whether it’s the surprisingly suave elegance of the resolutely horizontal office buildings, or the variations in scale between SWA’s constellation of plazas, passagewa...

AECOM's basketball net-inspired designs for a new Los Angeles Clippers arena are unveiled

2019-07-26T16:18:00-04:00

The Clippers on Thursday unveiled the first look at their proposed Inglewood arena, an 18,500-seat, billion-dollar project funded by owner Steve Ballmer that the team believes will begin construction on time in 2021 and open three years later.

The basketball net-inspired designs for the 900,000-square-foot arena include a solar panel tile cladding system as well as a sunken basketball court overlooked by stacked seating areas, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Ground-level view of the plaza leading to the arena. Image courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers.

The arena is designed by AECOM, while Anderson Barker Architects and City Design Studio of Los Angeles are designing a series of buildings located with a plaza that leads to the arena. Hood Studios is providing landscape architecture services for the project.

The stadium will be located on a site next door to the forthcoming HKS Architects-designed Los Angeles Rams stadium.

Nike transforms historic Chicago church into basketball court for young hoopers

2018-09-19T17:33:00-04:00

It has been said that sport is a religion, and a new pop-up court in Chicago facilitated by Nike takes this quite literally. The Church of Epiphany, dating back to 1885, has been converted by the shoe company into its latest Just Do It HQ. Decked out in custom stained glass, the former historic place of worship has become a site for local high school basketball teams to shoot some hoops.

Photography by Mo Daoud.

The conversion is the work of Storey Studio, a British design studio that has collaborated with Nike on a number of colorful projects. Outfitted with a state-of-the-art basketball court, sports gym, and locker room, their latest work was open for the month of August, offering activities such as interactive youth workshops, training, and school clinics. Former Bulls star Scottie Pippen even stopped by to share some advice with local high school athletes.

Photography by Mo Daoud.

This converted church is the latest example of Nike'...

Golden State Warriors Select Snøhetta And AECOM As Architecture Team To Build New Arena On SF Waterfront

2012-08-27T16:39:00-04:00

“Snøhetta’s extensive experience with ambitious waterfront projects and its world-class architects’ familiarity with San Francisco through their work on the SFMOMA expansion was a huge factor in our decision,” said Joe Lacob, Co-Executive Chairman and CEO of the Warriors. “All you have to do is look at what they’ve done for the new National Opera House in Oslo and the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt to see what is possible at Piers 30-32.”