HOK and Snow Kreilich raise thin canopy above St Louis soccer stadium

Global design studio HOK and Minnesota-based Snow Kreilich Architects have teamed up to create the Citypark urban sports campus and stadium for a Major League Soccer club in St Louis, Missouri.

Designed for the St Louis City Soccer Club, Citypark spans 25.5 acres in the heart of downtown St. Louis, near the iconic Gateway Arch and Mississippi River.

“[The venue] shifts the MLS stadium narrative from an enclosed singular space divorced from the city to a public space that brings together all of St Louis to be part of a civic soccer experience,” the team said.

Completed in November 2022 by HOK and Snow Kreilich Architects, the complex includes a 22,500-seat stadium, team headquarters and a practice facility, and has a structural system made primarily with recycled steel.

The stadium was built on a former freeway off-ramp and parking lot with an elevated topography that allowed the pitch level to be set 17 feet (5.1 metres) below the street-level concourse and minimised the height of the building in relation to the surrounding buildings.

The team submerged the operations and support spaces below grade – accessed by tunnels and buried loading docks – to create a 360-degree seamless fan experience that connects to the surrounding street grid.

The ground level of the rectangular stadium is enclosed with light-grey masonry and glass that allow views both into and out of the venue.

Additionally, an elevated upper concourse wraps around the building with a drink rail along the facade, opening the stadium to the gameday festivities on the exterior of the stadium.

A 120-foot wide, portico-like canopy is supported by two rows of columns – an inner row of robust, compressed columns and an outer row of delicate, tensile columns – to balance above the steeply raked concrete seating bowl.

“It acts as a front porch to the city and creates connections between the city and the activity of the stadium,” said HOK.

While providing shade to fans and amplifying the sound of cheering, HOK and Snow Kreilich Architects wanted to create a modernist structure reminiscent of the Gateway Arch.

“Citypark exhibits a seamless fusion of structural engineering and architectural design,” said the studios.

“Through a coordinated system that features steel in a variety of ways, the structural engineering complements the architecture, creating open, interconnected spaces and fluid exterior forms.”

Lightweight spanning trusses were combined with an invisible lateral system that concealed the seismic bracing. Meanwhile, the canopy’s shallow cantilever is supported by an outrigger system and varied beam sizes that allow the edges of the canopy to look thinner.

The venue opened its inaugural season in 2023, billing itself as a “zero-waste venue: with 100 per cent recycled structural steel – that can be disassembled and reused – low-energy LED lighting, low-flow water fixtures, and a high-efficiency building control system.

“The urban stadium is connected to and focused on the City as much as it is on soccer,” the team said.

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