Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Under-Siege. SHoP Architects revealed its secret designs for a massive Major League Soccer stadium and concert venue being proposed for the middle of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Major League Soccer (MLS) is pushing to build a 35,000 seat stadium on 13 acres of public parkland. The plan calls for filling in the former Pool of Industry from the 1964 Worlds Fair and building on the Flushing River. (Images: screen captures from presentation)
The plan would destroy additional parkland (bottom right) including dozens of trees by installing artificial turf fields to replace fields eliminated to build the stadium. MLS had also been pushing to build a stadium on another swath of parkland - Hudson River Park in Manhattan.
Queens
By Geoffrey Croft
The first images of the controversial soccer stadium being proposed in the middle of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park were leaked.
The secret plans were revealed on February 1st by SHoP's Gregg Pasquarelli while the architect was giving a lecture to students at his alma mater at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture. His hour-long plus presentation focused mainly on the Barclays Center in Brooklyn but diverted for two minutes to discuss other projects including the 35,000 seat soccer stadium.
The video of the presentation entitled The design of Barclays Center ... How it happened included details of the soccer design but it was pulled hours after it became available this morning on Empire of Soccer New York, a two-year old site.
Pasquarelli provided the most detailed discussion of the project's design to date.
During the presentation he noted the secrecy involved with the project and refused to name the project or the obvious location.
“The project I’m not supposed to show (you) so I am not going to tell you where it is or what it is but it’s a new stadium that should be announced in the next couple of months,” he revealed.
FLUSHING STADIUM NEGATIVE (DISPLAYS SEE-THROUGH SKELETON)
Pasquarelli delineates how the park “folds up into the concourse” while revealing another unique detail to the stadium’s construction. “It’s all about making a new kind of stadium that has no walls, that’s completely open at all times,” he says.
"Flushing Meadow Stadium consists of a tighter, rigid skeleton to create it’s top. That type of solidity could help explain Commissioner Don Garber’s claim that the 25k seat arena could grow to accommodate 35k without further expansion into the park," Empire of Soccer New York writes. "The skeleton would already be there for that purpose."
THE PARK WITHIN THE STADIUM - The landmark location of the arena won’t be lost in it’s construction. Working with the contours of the landscape, the stadium’s upper level “folds down” as described by Pasquarelli, giving full view of Flushing’s most iconic symbol – The Unisphere.
MLS spokesperson Risa Heller insisted that “this is not what the stadium is going to look like."
“This was an early architectural design study that was developed to help us understand height, mass, and other issues pertaining to the land-use process,” she said.
“When we have an owner, they will propose what the stadium will look like."
The plan calls for filling in the former Pool of Industry from the 1964 Worlds Fair (above) and building in the Flushing River.
Read More:
FIRST LOOK: MLS’s Queens Stadium Renderings
Empire of Soccer New York - February 25, 2013 - By Dave Martinez
Plans for proposed Queens soccer stadium leaked online
New York Post - February 25, 2013 - By Rich Calder
Let's put the stadium in Sheep's Meadow in the middle of Central Park, which is the park for the rich and by the rich.Sarcasm alert.
ReplyDeletecrazy, they should be ashamed, this is gross
ReplyDelete