Downtown Stadium
New Downtown Soccer Stadium Plan to Replace Former Mall
Football finds a new home
Recently, we’ve seen the growing popularity of a team sport in North America, which has historically been overshadowed by more developed and culturally important sports. Soccer, or football if you’re everywhere else in the world, is gaining great momentum with the 2026 World Cup on the horizon. In preparation for the prestigious event, more developments focus on creating new venues for players and sports fans alike—this is the new golden age of soccer stadiums in the region.
Among the many plans for renovations and brand-new buildings all over the map, there’s one promising early-stage project that truly stands out: a bold vision of a mall conversion in a busy downtown venue. We were fortunate enough to get signed on for the visualization of an architectural pitch made by one of our long-time collaborators, Gensler, a global architecture and design firm.
Large-scale visualization done right
One of the most exciting aspects of the proposed stadium was also our greatest hurdle. A building this big is not often seen crammed into an innercity landscape—it would be hard enough to capture one on an actual camera, let alone render it in 3D while retaining its sense of scale and realism. Ultimately, our artists had to find clever ways to create compositions using a virtual wide lens camera that resulted in conceptual renders looking well-balanced and life-like, yet showing this impressive architectural feat from as many angles as possible.
Made out of linen
We also had to account for one more thing: its unique roof structure that envelopes the structure from every angle, all the while leaving ample room for a dome salvaged from the mall that previously stood here. When we say one-of-a-kind, we are not exaggerating—this metal and glass-like roofing is actually made out of linen that is usually used to cover tennis courts. The point of using a material wholly unique to a building like this is to clearly telegraph to the whole city that a match is being played. To honor the architectural vision, we had to precisely calculate the opacity, color, and reflections of the roof on our renders. While not a small artistic and technical undertaking, we enjoyed working on this project so much that the team even made additional visualizations so the design firm could choose the ones best aligned with their needs—a practice we often do to keep our clients satisfied with our work.
As big soccer fans, our studio is thrilled to have taken part in this architectural pitch process, and we hope to see this concept succeed and play a big part in the future of our beloved sport overseas.
Project details
