Home to the Oakland A’s baseball team, the new 27,000 seat stadium designed by global firm BIG offers enticing views of the water and streets below from the grassy park perched at the peak of the structure, which provides additional space for 10,000 avid baseball fans.
“Our design for the A's new home at the heart of Oakland's revitalised waterfront seeks to return the game to its roots as the natural meeting place for the local community," said BIG founder Bjarke Ingels.
Complete with trees and a winding pathway, the elevated greenspace circles the angled sides of the structure before dipping down to meet the ground at the revitalised waterfront, where a diverse programme of concessions, cafes and shops that activates the concourse have been, according to BIG, designed to “ensure the ballpark, and the park that sits atop it, is active even on the 284 non-game days."
In a bid to ease urban congestion, BIG has also designed a new electrically powered cable-car system that will include two transit hubs in and out of the stadium, to provide a faster and easier transport solution for fans on game days.
The gondola is proposed to transport sports fans from the city centre to Jack London Square. The system will begin at Oakland's 12th Street BART Station, close to the Oakland Convention Center, and provide a direct route to the new stadium in the Howard Terminal area.
Outdoor stations at either end will anchor wire cables, which will carry the gondola cars through a white hoop atop a central post. The stations are designed with outdoor escalators that lead to the platforms and are formed by U-shaped curved volumes with silvery exteriors. Pale wood boards line the undersides of the structures and will carry down to form decks and waiting platforms.
The gondola ride is proposed to last around three minutes and is estimated to move 6000 individual per hour, in either direction, and will fit approximately 35 people.
"A gondola provides a unique and important transportation solution for better connecting Oakland's growing downtown and waterfront," said Jeff Bellisario, vice president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.
Both projects stand as part of a larger masterplan to redevelop the existing Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. The Coliseum area will be redesigned with sports areas and residential and educational developments, while paying homage to its athletic history.
"The Oracle Arena will be repurposed as an events centre, while the field of the Coliseum will remain as a vestige of the previous era – with the lower bowl integrated into the landscape like an ancient amphitheatre," BIG said.
Images BIG via Dezeen