The Oakland Athletics have unveiled plans for their new highly-anticipated stadium. Leaving their longtime home at the current Coliseum, which will be transformed into a tech and housing hub, the A's will be moving to a mega-ballpark designed by Bjarke Ingels that will be located at the Howard Terminal waterfront.
Renderings for the new ballpark, described by A's president Dave Kaval as "nothing you have ever seen," show a futuristic facility with nods to the jewel box design popularized by Philadelphia's Shibe Park at the turn-of-the century. Shibe Park, known later as Connie Mack Staidum, also happens to be the team's old home from when they were the Philadelphia Athletics.
The ambitious stadium will seat 34,000 and feature a publicly accessible rooftop park with views of the waterfront. Surrounding the ballpark, a series of wedge-shaped high-rises will further bring cafes, shops, co-working spaces and apartments to the area. Important to Kaval is that the area remain open and accessible to the community at all times, even when games aren't taking place. Lacking nearby mass transit, the A's and the city have also floated the idea of building a gondola that would shuttle fans from downtown Oakland.
The Danish firm will be working alongside Gensler and James Corner Field Operations to complete the project which is being targeted to open in 2023. Announced at a press conference this morning, fans and residents of the Bay Area have already taken to twitter to offer up some community feedback.
4 Comments
So most of the apartment buildings have to look at the side of a stadium? Poorly composed on the site --- doesn't look like the architects spent much time on this one. Seems strange not to take advantage of the waterfront too--scared to be like AT&T park?
For a better version of the recent sports complex with towers in urban site, they should have studied SHoP's Barclay's center and towers. Much better design with its site.
I've noticed that BIG projects seem to work better in their Danish context. The big american projects, 2WTC, Wash Skins, Smithsonian seem to fizzle out. Probably because they don't work well -- it seems like human nature to cut out the BS when working close to home.
I live and work in Oakland, there's no forest over there - they want to build a stadium by Schnitzter's junk and salvage yard? Oakland ain't no Copenhagen
BIG needs to get to work with the site and, not just take "BIGSs hits" and expect them to play here - it won't work here, they need to do their homework. or as we say here- "This is Oakland"
+++ The site location isn't terrible geographically, but spend more than a damn weekend here.
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