Princeton University Stadium

Princeton, NJ, United States

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Thermaflex -- Parking Deck Expansion Joint

Princeton University Stadium

Princeton, NJ, United States

Type

Hospitality + Sport › Stadium

YEAR

1998

SIZE

1,000,000 +

The success of RVA’s entry in the competition to design a
replacement for Princeton University’s historic, and much loved, Palmer
Memorial Stadium owed much to an extensive program of research and analysis
into the university’s current and projected needs for its main athletic
facility. As with the Lehman College Physical Education Facility, RVA
substantially modified the original commission to produce a facility that would
be an attractive public space for the university independent of the sporting
events that constituted its prime purpose. The detailed design of the new
stadium’s service areas and access paths evokes the similar care devoted to
these areas in the stadia for Rosario stadium and Mendoza stadium. Princeton’s brief stipulated that the new stadium be
situated on the site of the old one and that it accommodate the fullest
possible range of sporting events: football, soccer, lacrosse, and track and
field. The project also had as a major objective the creation of a year-round
facility. RVA, having determined that Palmer Stadium had deteriorated beyond
repair, studied a total of 27 stadium typologies in three configurations. The
design finally chosen from the 81 alternatives called for a 27.800-seat stadium
providing playing and spectator space for team sports, and, along the outside
of its rear wall, a 2.500-seat grandstand for spectators of events at an
adjacent track. The removal of the track from its previous position, encircling
the playing field within the stadium, was meant to enhance the spectators’
enjoyment of the game by reducing the distance between them and the action. The approximately 490 meter-long horseshoe-shaped wall
building that constitutes the stadium’s outer enclosure recalls in its shape
and massing the stadium it replaced. This part of the stadium, which houses
such functional areas as concession stands, restrooms, ticket offices, and a
press box, is constructed of load-bearing pre-cast concrete panels with a
sand-blasted exposed aggregate finish. With no internal steel frame structure,
the system is economical to produce and permits rapid construction. Aggregates
and pigments were selected to achieve a color in keeping with those of the
surrounding university buildings. Within the wall’s enclosure, spectator seating is provided
in two separate structures. A continuous bowl constructed of cast-in-place
concrete with aluminum bench seating surrounds the classically shaped football
field, sunken below grade as at the Mendoza stadium. Above grade level,
trapezoidal grandstands line three sides of the field. Spaces at the field’s corners are left open to the sky to
serve as entrance plazas. For the upper grandstands, designed to float between
the lower bowl and the wall building, a hybrid system of pre-cast concrete
seating units and cantilevered beams supported on cast-in-place concrete piers
and tubular steel posts was employed. Here, as in the wall building, the
absence of an internal steel frame structure contributed to the project’s low
unit cost and rapid construction. The specially designed risers of the seating
units are perforated with horizontal slots allowing natural light to penetrate
the stands to the concourse below. Making this concourse area an attractive,
naturally lit space with extensive plantings was a way of drawing the
university community into the stadium area year-round, independent of sporting
events.