Designing for dollars

Drawing of the northeast view of a new baseball stadium unveiled by Mayor Anthony Williams, the D.C. Sports & Entertainment commission and the Washington Nationals during a news conference in Washington March 14, 2006. REUTERS/HOK Sport/Devrouax & Purnell/Handout.

Surprisingly, perhaps the most critical coverage on the quality of the design of the new baseball stadium comes from the Washington Post sports section. Tom Boswell's column, "DC's Diamond in the rough," and the story "Form Follows Bottom Line: Stadium Design Maximizes Profit," cover the argument well enough. Boswell writes:

The new ballpark for the Nationals, for which plans, drawings, artist's renderings and a virtual computer tour were released yesterday, will either be one of the most stunning achievements in sports architecture in years, or it will be a handsome, expensive, amenity-packed, unobjectionable ballpark that falls somewhere in the middle of the major league pack.

The aesthetic and economic impact of the new park is completely up in the air, according to some of those who have designed it. This time the devil isn't in the details. Rather it is the potential for a spark of architectural divinity that lurks in those final finishing touches. Will Washington get its iconic anchor in Southeast with walls of glass rather than metal panel, with exterior walls made of limestone or precast concrete rather than cheap, ugly ground-face cinder block?

In short, will the District make the same excellent choices on exterior finishes and details that make the Convention Center such a masterpiece, or will budget constraints reduce a potential modernist marvel of a park into a regular old stadium? ...

"From 10 to 20 million dollars could make a world of difference in the architectural impact of that park -- that is, if the dollars were targeted for the exterior," Purnell said. "That's what we did at the Convention Center: 'Don't touch the exterior budget.' All exterior costs are only 12 to 15 percent of the budget. The difference between the cheapest-possible-way materials and the best is only six or seven percent on a $300 million park -- about $20 million."

People have made the point that 70% of the attendees will come from the north, while the stadium is designed to have its main entrance on the south. That parking garages, if anything, should be underground, etc....

Design on the cheap is a fine post-WWII American tradition that time after time proves to be shopworn. Perhaps things will be different this time.

Index Keywords: stadiums-arenas