The Sacramento King?s solar-powered home, a tech-savvy fan?s dream, envisions stadium 3.0 A glittering new addition to Sacramento?s downtown, the Golden 1 Center opened last night with a decidedly old-school Paul McCartney concert. Don?t let the nostalgic opener fool you; this $557 million, 17,500-seat multi-use arena, which serves as the home of the NBA?s Sacramento Kings as well as a year-round event venue, offers a convincing vision of the future of stadium design.
The future, based on vision of team owner and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ranadivé, is a giant leap forward in technology and sustainability, and a compelling look at how Silicon Valley can reimagine an entertainment venue. The world?s first LEED-Platinum indoor sports stadium, the indoor-outdoor structure has towering five-story-tall aircraft hangar doors that allow it to function like a futuristic open-air auditorium. It's completely powered by solar energy, and features an array of technological advancements, including a lighting-fast Wi-Fi network and enough bandwidth for a small city. That also means changing the way the stadium interacts with the city around it. According to the design team at AECOM, the vision started with a decision to deconstruct how venues are built.
"We wanted to take a stadium, which is usually seen as an inward-facing building, and really connect it with the city," says Rob Rothblatt, a design principal at AECOM.
"Arenas haven?t changed since the days of the...