Let’s Redesign Notre Dame Stadium: Exteriors

Well, we’ve made it to our final week of actual design for our new stadium for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. Next week we will bring it all together with some final images, but this week we’re taking a look at the exterior of the stadium and making sure if fits into a campus that has some very strict design rules.

Since we’re not going to find any of the old yellow Notre Dame brick we’re going to need to stick with the tan brick and limestone that all new buildings around campus use, including Campus Crossroads. We are also going to carry over patterns seen around campus in the arrangement of the facades and the hierarchy of layers on the facade. You can take a look at the header image if you would like to get an idea of the color and layout that we’re working with.

On the north facade you can see the main entrance to the stadium flanked on either side by entrances to the new museum and team store. Above the main entrance is open space created by opening up the stadium to a view of Touchdown Jesus.

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The west facade is noticeably less significant than the north facade. Circulation areas flank the main bay on both sides. In the center is a long area of glazing that mimics the development around campus. Behind this glazing area is the concessions on the first two levels. The third level houses the luxury suites and thus has even more glazing to allow views to campus while looking out and views of the field looking in.

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The south facade is a smaller version of the east with circulation flanking the concession areas. On the third level is the enclosed bar below the scoreboard with the top of the scoreboard seen above the top of the bar area.

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The west side of the stadium is the same as the east side, but since the suites are only on the east side the third level is open concourse for the third level of seating.

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Believe it or not we’ve now got a full stadium. Or at least as much of a stadium as we can design in a month. Next week will be the last of the series and we will pull everything together in a series of images to take a look at everything one last time.