GATHERING SPACE
The district surrounding Chase Center is called Thrive
City, and features a community gathering space, plus 100,000ft2
(93,000m²)of leasable restaurant and retail space.
“It’s really designed to feel like you’re going for a walk in an
urban park,” says landscape architect Rene Bihan of SWA Group.
“As you walk around that site, it’s a series of experiences.”
Its centerpiece is the 36,000ft2 plaza outside the arena, where
a large video screen affixed to the façade creates a gathering
place for fans to cheer on the Warriors during road games. “We
look at that plaza as an original venue of its own,” Welts says.
“We want it to stay active with events all throughout the year.”
with better and more plentiful food and drink options,
a variety of seating types and the largest center-hung
digital videoboard in the NBA.
Instead of having to consider the design
to accommodate multiple sports, the architects
configured the bowl specifically for basketball, with
seats lining the court but also with an ideal rake to
view the action. They were also willing to incorporate
a decrease in capacity, down to 18,000 seats from
19,500 at Oracle Arena.
“We wanted it to be for basketball first, but concerts
a close second,” says architect David Manica. “We can
compress the long axis and optimize it for basketball.
The loudness of space directly correlates to the
intimacy, excitement and loudness of the crowd. The
Oracle Arena is very small, and the roof dips down
into the bowl environment. We couldn’t do that here
for reasons related to industry standards for basketball
CHASE CENTER
and concerts. We had to raise that ceiling back up. But
we shrunk that volume of space as much as we could.”
Yet ultimately, the architects and their Warriors clients
selected a horseshoe-shaped configuration for the
arena because that’s what best suits a concert venue.
When a stage is set up on one side, there aren’t seats
behind it being wasted.
Chase Center’s concert and theater configuration
isn’t just about the shape of the bowl. Perhaps the
arena’s most dramatic feature is how the super-sized
videoboard from Samsung’s PrismView subsidary,
which integrates 15 displays and measures 57ft (17m)
wide by 34ft (10m) high, hoists into the roof.
The 41ft (12.5m) deep roof trusses were configured
in a doughnut shape around space for the scoreboard
and were made deeper than usual to compensate it
structurally. “There was a lot of talk about this early
on in the project, so we could develop a roof system
layout that achieved those goals, where we could
(Above) Thrive City features
community space, restaurant
and retail sites and big screens
where supporters can watch
the Warriors on the road
(Right) The West Entrance
lobby is spacious and stylish
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