Vero Queero on November 15, 2011, at 07:01PM – #1

The Nostromo has landed.

Simon Hartigan on November 15, 2011, at 08:20PM – #2

This look beautiful! It fits in very nicely with LA Live. It's a stadium that looks like it's built for an area with amazing weather. And it looks iconic enough to DTLA on the map even more. This along with the My Figueroa project will be a welcome addition to DTLA.

William Crandell on November 15, 2011, at 08:37PM – #3

Earthquakes and Santa Ana windstorms, not to mention minor tornadoes....

Those renderings, just like the first design, are light as fairy dust.

Having a temporary/removable roof over the entire space will prove to be too much.

All events where the entire stadium is populated: it should be roofless, subject to whatever the weather.

For more intimate exhibition use (on the field) or events where only the lower level seating would be populated; suspend a moisture proof fabric from just behind the leading edge/balcony of the upper level of seating. Then inflate 30 foot length balloons, inflate them with a light, inert gas on the field and release them to rise up and carry the suspended fabric upwards to form something of a canopy. Collect whatever rainfall draining off of the fabric along the bottom level of the upper balcony. The structural design of the balcony would have to accommodate both live/dead loads as well as the lift caused by the gas filled balloons. The overall fabric should have translucence, admit sunlight to the intimate space in daytime hours.

Problem solved. Now send me $50,000 bucks Leiweke! (Copyright 2011, Juanito)

on November 15, 2011, at 09:10PM – #4

Ortega y Gasset * “During the Restoration ( - Restoration of the Spanish Monarchy) the sensitivity for anything really strong, excellent, whole and profound was lost… purity did not move the heart: the quality of perfection and loftiness was invisible like an ultra-violet ray and inevitably, the mediocre and frivolous seemed to become more prevalent.” “…in good faith men applauded mediocrity because they had no experience of the profound.”

They don’t know the difference, neither client nor architect.

Simon Hartigan on November 17, 2011, at 07:42PM – #5

William Crandell, technology is amazing. I suppose your family doubted most projects that test the limits of engineering wouldn't get built.

William Crandell on November 18, 2011, at 02:41AM – #6

The light and gossameric quality of the overhead structures (or wings): proceed to attach or fenestrate with a translucent material and then rev up a windstorm or shake it for over a minute in a huge earthquake. The only reality that I can see is that the structural material would need to be of such strength that the cost of manufacturing it would be prohibitive. So, what we see in these renderings, isn't what the finished product is going to look like. Same-same regards the original design.

L.A. - the world capital of illusions. We do not very well discern - between our laurels and our thorns.

But it does seem to want to take flight.

William Crandell on November 18, 2011, at 10:02PM – #7

Mister Jon Regardie has a bit of an interesting article newly up on the Downtown News website. But he really fumbles it by suggesting that both professional football and professional baseball be housed in the same stadium at the site now slotted for Farmer's Field. No way, Jose.

But wait: imagine if Dodger Stadium could be picked up by huge dirigibles and floated south and set down in South Park....

Not so long ago, the city undertook to condemn land north of the convention center, tore down the exhibit hall at 11th & Fig and now we have Staples Center and L.A. Live and if the NFL would be so gracious, we might also get an expansion team and Farmer's Field. The city had earlier condemned a lot of properties in the late 1980s for the I.M. Pei addition to the original convention center.

The underground portion of the Blue Line beneath Flower Street would need to be extended south and a large new station replace the surface grade station now located north of Pico. But would the city be so bold as to realign Pico to the south between Fig and Olive, and eliminated Flower, Hope and Twelfth streets to create enough land for a new baseball stadium?

The fans' view of the downtown skyline would be incomparable and some of those lately constructed condos at Twelfth and Grand would need soundproofing and armored windows.

A new Dodger Stadium? Why not?

Simon Hartigan on November 18, 2011, at 10:31PM – #8

Mister Crandell, why are you such a pessimist? You've come in here being awfully negative. I know you're talking about the Dodgers because that's what you've read in the news lately. But consider this, Baseball is losing popularity vs football and basketball, even hockey, which are all gaining popularity. Soccer is one of the fastet growing sports in the country, and why not, it's the world sport and America is starting to embrace itself as a world country rather than isolate ourselves. If the trend continues with soccer, and keep in mind AEG owns the Galaxy as well, it's very likely the Galaxy will move into Farmers Field with twice as many home games as an NFL stadium. If the Dodgers were to move in as well, the new DTLA stadium will be as packed as Staples Center. Though the Dodgers wouldn't need to move for that to happen as the stadium will get plenty of use in other way as already stated in other articles. Try not to always look at things negatively and think about what is possible. By the way, I know you're the self-proclaimed structural engineer in this room with a masters in SoCal weather and seismology. I'm curious, say for a moment you're wrong about everything regarding the engineering possibilities of this rendering and that it gets paid for privately by AEG, would you like it? I think it would do you well to research all the most impressive things this country has ever built and find out just how many people didn't believe it'd be possible or that it would fail before it was built. It sure is a good thing everyone doesn't think like you, we'd all still live in straw huts because we'd know it's possible to build that.

William Crandell on November 19, 2011, at 07:23AM – #9

And then there was that freak storm that dumped four feet of Hail on Watts back in '03. If that had happened in downtown, the convention center would have imploded.

Sorry to have threatened your illusions. Time will surely take care of them.

David McBane on November 19, 2011, at 02:19PM – #10

Simon Hartigan - The Galaxy won't be moving to Farmers Filed anytime soon. You're right that AEG owns the Galaxy but you are forgetting they also own the Carson stadium where the Galaxy play. So unless some new use for the Carson stadium materializes, the Galaxy will be staying there.

Simon Hartigan on November 19, 2011, at 08:08PM – #11

David, I think the Carson stadium will be their home for the next few years at least. But the popularity of soccer including MLS has gone up a lot in this country. The Galaxy have one of the best attendance records in the league of a fast growing sport so the Carson stadium will soon be too small and the location isn't very good, AEG believes in cities, not suburbs. I think it's possibly they might sell the stadium and move the Galaxy by 2015/16 into DTLA. I think at the very least they'll play a few games in DTLA each year against bigger name teams and might even sell it out. The problem when MLS was playing in the major stadiums is that it felt empty and that had a negative effect on the atmosphere, but times have changed and the "soccer specific" stadiums that were built to go with a lower popularity may not be in the future of the Galaxy. We shall see.

David McBane on November 21, 2011, at 10:58AM – #12

Simon Hartigan - Not to be confrontational but AEG believes in making money, not cities or suburbs. AEG thinks that cities provide the best returns but if suburbs did, they would build their projects there.

A stadium is only worth the money it generates so if the Galaxy moves and the Home Depot Center loses it biggest tenant, the Center loses a huge amount of its value. The increase in ticket sales by playing at Farmers Field won't make up for this lost value.

Plus, since this is the Home Depot Center, those naming rights and fees comes with obligations by AEG to keep a certain amount events with a certain amount of attendance at the Center or Home Depot gets some of its money back. Again, take away the Center's biggest tenant and AEG would have a lot of trouble keeping its obligations.

Finally, the Home Depot Center is the largest soccer-specific stadium in the country and it can hold 27,000. Average attendance for the Galaxy is about 17,000 so there is still plenty room to grow before the Center is too small.

At the earliest, a move by Galaxy to Farmer's Field is at least 10 years away, probably a lot longer.

Morthos on January 25, 2012, at 09:11PM – #13

Ugly. nuff said.