Warwickshire County Cricket Club | Edgbaston | Stadium | Comp.

[KHvillan]

The grey is quite bland but the scale and shape of the stand is very imposing, particularly as it is very close to the road. The stand rises up when you walk to the eastern edge of CH Park.

[Bureau des etrangers]

I deteste this with a passion!!!

[Bureau des etrangers]

Must be a nice view of the skyline once its complete, you can just see beetham making an appearance here.......

[ReissOmari]

Looks like Costco Warehouse

[woodhousen]

i have no problem with it.... its a stadium lol!

[Erebus555]

Would make a great supermarket.

[Victorian]

Originally Posted by woodhousen

i have no problem with it.... its a stadium lol!

Stadiums can make an architectural statement, from the Coliseum in Rome. through the Berlin Olympic Stadium to the Birds' Nest in Beijing. This looks cheap and nasty, a statement of current fiscal times perhaps, but I'll reserve final judgement until I see the finished article in the flesh.

[woodhousen]

yes stadiums can look amazing, they can be clad in gold, glass, steel, you name it...

but only becuase it is not a londmark statement of architecture again does not make it bad... this is a decent quality stand for part of the WCCC staduim. yes its a little bland, but its being broken up with windows to add subtle interest and articulate itself... it also has an interesting shape which also adds the the variation, the the cladding adds subtle texture....

ok not claiming it to be an awarding winning piece of architecture... but its not a bad design!

[morestoreysplease]

I love the curvature of this but wouldn't it have looked better in a leaf green? Grey is such a killer in huge expanses.

[woodhousen]

but the point im making is that a colour is totally subjective..... the architure of the building itself is not a issue.

in a personal leavel, if i picked the cladding myself, i would have gone with a colour scheme/pattern like soccer city in j'burg.

but grey whilst not exciting is safe. pollution and dust wont appear as fast as it would with lighter colours, the colour wont fade or date as fast and darker colours.... love it or hate it, grey is sterile for a reason.... its soo practical!

[U475 Foxtrot]

Colour is not subjective. It conveys meaning and I worry that it the blue is the bit that will date and will make it look cheap.

Finishes always look best all look at their best in their natural state. I wait to see with interest how it will turn out but if the blue were tiles, glass, timber or even an anodised aluminium then it would look less like a cheap retail development.

Is the appearance of Coventry City centre improved by this prominent lump? Better finishes would certainly have helped.

I don't think anyone would believe that 11 Brindleyplace would have been improved by big blocks of colour on the outside.

[woodhousen]

no..... and ofcourse i didnt mean it quite as bluntly as that.... but you cant compare a cricket stadium with either a multi-storey car park or 11 brindley place.. they are totally different buildings and uses in totallly different environments

but focusing on the car park, that is a prime example how the WCCC stand could be worse.... there you have a building with bland regular proportions, poor dull fenestration, and lack of texture or depth.... the WCCC is curved and rouded, have text and depth as a consequence of its shage and materials, and have a varied fenestration to create interest!

[Biosonic]

I think I agree with Foxy in that the silver of the aluminium cladding is good. You can anodise with dye in now which can give a range of colours but they tend to be shades of silver or gold. The risk is people opt for darker colours which works with 11 Brindleyplace but not so well with something like the Cube.

The blue worries me too but I'll save judgement until I see it. They could have curtain-walled it with tinted glass which would have been quite special.

[woodhousen]

... but you know that will not be the case though... lets be honest!

[U475 Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by woodhousen

the WCCC stand could be worse....

I agree, they could have let Alsop loose on it.

Still a shame that it jars horribly with the existing award buildings and employs cheap materials in such an trite & obvious way. The Oval is the building this should have been.

Originally Posted by Biosonic

They could have curtain-walled it with tinted glass which would have been quite special.

and back-lighting it could have made it a branding opportunity or advertising revenue stream.

[sefton66]

I like it i would think they would have a lighting scheme surrounding the exterior facing up to light up the cladding,

Does anyone know any figures for how much seating this stand is going to add? and what the capacity will be?

[KHvillan]

I like it as well. I didn't like the images but the scale and curve has won me over.

Looks much better than the red boxes they've erected at Old Trafford.

[morestoreysplease]

It's going to be a total of 25,000 Sefton.

[majortim]

If Alsop had been let loose on it, it could have looked something like this:

http://www.lostateminor.com/2007/08/23/alsops-filmport/

[Bachy Soletanche]

the horror, the Horror!