The "Inverted Bowl" arena

[dfwabel]

Detroit, Sacramento, and Milwaukee, your facilities are already obsolete.  Start over.  

 

Rossetti, original architects of The Palace of Auburn Hills, Arthur Ashe Stadium, and whatever the Senators call home now, are in the process of getting a patent on a facility design called an "inverted bowl", which well...I'll let them explain it but here are some alleged benefits:

 

• Quote

   

  • Reduced steel tonnage of up to 22 percent less, lowering construction costs.
  • Overall revenue projection increases 20–30 percent higher than traditional arenas.
  • A footprint that is 18 percent smaller, so it can be more easily designed into urban areas.
  • A shorter overall construction period due to ease of constructability

   

   

 

 

http://theinvertedbowl.com/

 

 

 

Now, bringing the upper bowl closer is one of the outcomes of having suites on one side only and Philips Arena is going away from that to have a ring of suites and two distinct seating bowls.  

[Sport]

Congratulations on inventing the Boston Garden. 

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

Congratulations on inventing the Boston Garden. 

Or the Sonics Arena

[sc49erfan15]

1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

Congratulations on inventing the Boston Garden. 

 

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

Or the Sonics Arena

 

Or, albeit on a much larger scale, tons of high school/community gyms built in the early 1900s, with the seating above the court - like this one:

 

 

The old Peabody Gym on Winthrop's campus (built in 1916) had an arrangement like this.

[The_Admiral]

I think a lot of high school gyms have mezzanines like that but also have the bleachers that pull out underneath them, so it's an uninterrupted slope. One time I was at a high school gym that was not my own a few hundred miles away and it was near-identical except the roof was a dome. It's always a weird feeling to be somewhere that's almost somewhere you know but not quite, like when your neighbor's house has the same floor plan but flipped.

[RichO]

Turn the cheap seats into club seats.

 

Another sad reminder that somewhere in my lifetime going to things turned into a luxury.

 

A luxury I grimace and pay for and enjoy the hell out of.

[FiddySicks]

16 hours ago, the admiral said:

I think a lot of high school gyms have mezzanines like that but also have the bleachers that pull out underneath them, so it's an uninterrupted slope. One time I was at a high school gym that was not my own a few hundred miles away and it was near-identical except the roof was a dome. It's always a weird feeling to be somewhere that's almost somewhere you know but not quite, like when your neighbor's house has the same floor plan but flipped.

 

We walked into our neighbor's house a few months ago (they were selling it) and it was absolutely identical to ours minus the huge annoying wall that divides our front room from the living room. It sort of reminded me of that episode of Roseanne where they finally see the neighbors house and find out it's just like their house only everything is just a little bit nicer. 

[4_tattoos]

Hmm. Neat. Wonder if that would work for a football stadium?

[neo_prankster]

Awesome. I hope Joe Tsai can use this to build a new arena here in SD.

[DTConcepts]

Smart idea. Although I don't think people are that willing to sit so high up just for luxury. It makes sense to lessen the cost and footprint, but people still want to sit close to the action. It'll work, but not the way they want it to.

[neo_prankster]

Or perhaps maybe Steve Ballmer borrows this idea if the Clippers follow through with building their own barn?

[BBTV]

Isn't this how many theaters / performance halls are, with multiple balconies?  When I used to sketch out arenas, this is pretty much how I did it, just with fewer tiers.  Hardly seems revolutionary or something patentable.  Also not what I think of when I hear the term "inverted bowl".  Lots about nothing.

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Isn't this how many theaters / performance halls are, with multiple balconies?

 

Absolutely, but this has video walls in it!

[MadmanLA]

Richfield Coliseum was another arena where the luxury suites sat above the upper level...

 

It was probably ahead of its time, but it's too bad that arena sat in the middle of nowhere.

[Sport]

I get what they're saying.

 

 

It moves everyone closer to the playing surface so the footprint of the building is smaller. That's cool, but they lose me because they have to say "WE TURNED THE ARENA GAME ON ITS BUTT!! [lens flare]". No you're just applying modern building materials and techniques to Tiger Stadium so now there's not a pole in everyone's line of sight. 

 

 

[The_Admiral]

I think luxury suites up top with one concourse serving both seating bowls was the way most arenas were until the Palace of Auburn Hills actually did change the game.

 

Also, isn't an "inverted bowl" just a dome? It reminds me of the "inverted W" pitching motion, which takes five extra syllables to say "M."

[Brass]

People want an "authentic experience?" Ok. Put down your phone and enjoy the event. Trust me, you're not the first person to film Hall & Oates singing "Rich Girl" from four hundred feet away.

 

And McCarthy is right; this is exactly what the Boston Garden was. But hey, tweaking something and reclaiming it as your own idea is what drives people in academia, so why not try it in architecture?

[4_tattoos]

If the "inverted bowl" really has a smaller footprint, then maybe NYCFC should consider this for the soccer stadium they want to build in New York. Wasn't an issue with one of the stadium proposed sites involving part of the land being owned by or overlapping some old railroad? (please correct me if I'm wrong) If that's the case then maybe a stadium with a smaller footprint could be the solution. I mean, you'd have to assume the inverted bowl could work for stadiums too.

[Digby]

Outdoors, Portland Timbers are doing a similar thing to their stadium in the next couple of years.

 

 

Which in turn was inspired by La Bombonera in Argentina, which has had a similar setup on one touchline for several decades.

 

 

Easy to snark on this dorky video but it's good to see new ideas in the stadium construction world. Larger arenas + multi-sport arenas really made for some bad viewing experiences in the last couple decades. Fun to see Boston Garden come up in this thread considering how bad for basketball most of the seats at TD Garden are. Seems like the pendulum is swinging back, at least for basketball, with Brooklyn and the Atlanta renovations. If my hard-earned tax dollars are going to go to corporate welfare for these things the least they could do is get me a halfway decent spot to watch the game from.

[BBTV]

It’s not a new idea though. That stadium in Argentina looks really cool. I like the suites set up totally vertical like that. I wonder if there’s some way to adapt that for baseball - maybe some way to do it behind the plate for the super expensive seats but still have regular stands on top.