The Washington Redskins are going BIG. Danish “starchitect” Bjarke Ingels, founder of the eponymously-named firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), offered a glimpse of his vision for the NFL football team’s new 60,000-seat stadium on 60 Minutes last week (Mar 11), and has since released more images. Little has been revealed about the functional elements of a sports arena, but the park grounds outside look spectacular.
Reminiscent of the rollicking amusement parks in which team owner Dan Snyder once invested, BIG’s new stadium plans include a moat lined by a white sand beach. The wave-filled ditch around the stadium could also become a skating surface during the winter, BIG’s drawings suggest. Renderings also show that façade of the Redskins’s “sculptural” new stadium could serve as a climbing wall or a dramatic stage backdrop for outdoor concerts.
“The one thing that everyone is excited about, is that the stadium is designed as much for the tailgating, like the pregame, as for the game itself,” Ingels told 60 Minutes. “So tailgating literally becomes a picnic in a park. That can actually make the stadium a more lively destination throughout the year, without ruining the turf for the football game.”
The Redskins, whose name has been a source of acrimonious debate, hopes to make their stadium a year round destination. Last year, US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said her office will bar the team’s plans to build in Washington, DC if it does not change its name, broadly considered derogatory to Native Americans.
The Redskins’s lease in Fedex Field in Landover, Maryland expires on 2027 and no details about the location for its new bombastic stadium has been revealed.
Quartz reached out to BIG and the Washington Redskins and will update with their comment.