Page 37 - Summer_2019

ArchDC Summer 2019.qxp_Spring 2019 5/22/19 2:57 PM Page 35

All photos © Adam Brockett

new Major League Soccer stadium on a site near Buzzard Point, in Project: Audi Field,
Southwest Washington. If Camden Yards hammered the first big
100 Potomac Avenue, SW, Washington, DC
crack in the ancient Roman and Modernist stadium archetype,
Audi Field, as the soccer stadium was ultimately dubbed, smashed Architects: Populous
it to pieces—and then reassembled the parts. Associate Architects: Michael Marshall Design
Populous principal Jon Knight, AIA, said Audi Field is Landscape Architects: Populous
Structural Engineers: A+F Engineers
“absolutely unique” as a result of having a site requiring a broad
Mechanical/Electrical Engineers: ME Engineers
range of governmental approvals and physical challenges far more Plumbing/Fire Protection Engineers: Howe Engineers
daunting than any that he had worked on previously. The continuous Civil Engineers: WSP
bowl has been fractured, exploded, and rearranged to fit a tight Design-Build Contractor: Turner Construction Company
rectangular site and to work around such obstacles. Aesthetic
choices reinforce this: particularly from the outside, the parts which required eliminating portions of First and S streets, SW, and
display a self-consciously wide array of forms, materials, colors, Potomac Avenue. The stadium complex and its site are essentially
finishes, and patterns, with no two sections alike. the same size, so planning obstacles could not be resolved simply
Audi Field, home of the DC United team, sits on one of the by moving the stadium, say, a little to the east or north.
smallest sites for Major League Soccer stadiums. It is a superblock This came to the forefront when the first big challenge arose.
created by the merger of two full city blocks plus parts of two more, A huge bank of Pepco electrical lines ran under First Street, SW.

GOAL! 35