Stadiums can catalyze rejuvenation and capitalize on larger potential for their communities. Thanks to the vision of bold developers, they have become an extension of public realm and culturally connect within the communities that they are built. SoFi Stadium and the adjacent Lake Park are hailed as “revolutionary” by the Los Angeles Times and designed to be a true community amenity for the people of Inglewood and the region.

Conceived with deep engagement from a broad coalition of community members, the owners, design team, and the City’s Economic & Community Development Dept. worked hand in hand on the development’s design. The design team promoted inclusion and equity through a design process free of barriers that valued open, comprehensive community interaction above all else. An enthusiastic mayor and ownership team with a tremendous creative spirit for sports and for community further amplified the design team’s motivation and imagination to push boundaries.

Going beyond the typical transformation that comes from a redevelopment, SoFi Stadium and the adjacent Lake Park break the paradigm of stadium design by capitalizing on Southern California’s great weather, moving many activities that would typically been inside to the outdoors for use by the community when the stadium is not in use. The result is a 365-day-per-year destination hailed as “revolutionary” by the Los Angeles Times. Now the community can access gardens, parks, plazas, culture, habitat, sports, family activities, and most importantly, new places in their city to connect and make memories. Entirely privately financed, SoFi Stadium’s mutually benefits public well-being and social values combined with infrastructure, climate resiliency, and green open space needs.

DESIGN PROGRAM

The landscape spaces of SoFi Stadium and the adjacent Lake Park are designed for experience, ecosystems, and water. When the development is complete, visitors will be able to engage with 25 acres of open spaces, walking paths, plazas, seating, and gathering areas. The planting program parallels a botanical garden in its show of biodiversity. Employing the Mediterranean biome’s wide arrays of plantings and shrubs suited to hot, dry summers and frost-free winters, the project includes highly diverse, low-maintenance plant ecologies with 5,000 trees, including desert Palm and Joshua trees, sycamores found along arroyos, and mountain evergreens.

Limits to ecological restoration—due to climate change, impermeability, heat island, and air/water quality issues—led to solutions beyond conventional boundaries, including Lake Park, a 6-acre constructed lake that collects stormwater runoff, filtering pollutants through natural wetlands for site irrigation. The novel water recycling system also serves as a community amenity, inspired by the original racetrack’s water feature, and reaffirmed by wide community input as a preferred landscape attraction.

Wherever possible, the design team explored solutions to welcome people in. The steel security fencing surrounding the stadium is an elegant design feature that moves through the site drawing graceful attention, while portions of it hide inconspicuously within the planter terraces and can be pulled out during games, achieving a flexible, semi-porous boundary that expresses both security and invitation.