Design Assistance
North End Zone Facility at Indiana University Memorial Stadium
North End Zone Facility at Indiana University Memorial Stadium
The North End Zone Facility at Indiana University’s football stadium connects the stadium’s two original sides, transforming the arena into a bowl-like shape and providing additional stadium seating for football fans. The building provides an iconic image for university athletics as a visible landmark from the north approach to campus and contributes to the game-day experience by introducing architectural character inside the stadium.
The addition acts as a literal and figurative bridge – literally, it connects the stadium’s original east and west stands. Figuratively, it connects the past and future of university athletics primarily via the Hall of Champions, a museum-quality exhibit displaying the history of the school’s athletics, located on the addition’s top floor. As an additional reference to the future of the athletics program, the new facility provides a student athlete physical development center featuring a 24,000 SF weight room; administrative offices for the athletic department; offices for football coaches and staff; team meeting rooms; and a new adjacent academic support commons.
Stylistically, the North End Zone’s architecture references the beautiful collegiate gothic limestone architecture of the academic campus. The precast panels feature multiple finishes and a majority of the panels were pre-insulated in the manufacturing facility before shipping. Narrow smooth-faced precast piers rise from its base, framing curtain wall openings while accentuating the verticality of the structure and giving the impression of carved stone detailing. Cast into the architectural panels is a one-story-tall university logo. Adding further character, the university’s name is also cast into the panels with an incised font.
Contextually connecting to the limestone quarries of the surrounding area, precast concrete formliners were used to impart a split-faced limestone-like texture into the concrete to emulate giant blocks of quarry limestone. These formliners were created by taking impressions from actual blocks of limestone which were then shipped to the precast plant. Bands of smooth-faced precast were integrated with the textured areas to help articulate the look of individual stone blocks. The corners of the towers feature panels poured with an invisible cold-formed joint at the outside corner, allowing significant depth to each leg and further creating the illusion of large stone blocks.
The creation of the end zone addition was challenging in that the addition had to match existing structures on campus which use limestone as the predominant building material. A key challenge was using precast cladding on a campus built with cut limestone. Precast allowed flexibility in color, shape and scale; thus, allowing the designer to achieve the look of large cut stones with a more cost-effective, schedule-friendly and sustainable building solution.
After the completion of the project, the addition's exterior quality became the design reference for future projects.
AWARDS
LOCATION
Bloomington, IN
ARCHITECT
Ratio Architects