Bumpin' this for a few notes so far:
Some of the early designs (which in my obsession of this thing, even I hadn't seen) were just crazy. Make you wonder how some of them could have even been built.
The original plan (1997-1998) was to be in Tempe, and combine the stadium with a new Coyotes arena...there would have been a central hotel directly between them, and would provide suites for both venues on either side.
South endzone seating. In a few of the early concepts, the SEZ seating was actually attached to the field tray...so, when the field would have been rolled in, the entire section of seats would have come in with it. Of course, this would mean a LOT more weight would have had to have been accounted for in the design of the tray, and because of the height, the whole backend of the stadium would have had to be redesigned. Probably wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense in reality, but kind of a cool idea anyway.
Roof. We've talked about this in the past, but in the final design of the stadium that was unveiled, the "skin" of the stadium extended onto the roof, with the "slots" (extending from the glass on the sides of the building) being filled with the "Bird-air" fabric. What ended up being constructed was a solid roof deck (except for the open fabric middle) covered with fabric. And, a different color of fabric to imply the skin of the stadium. This change was due to time limitations - not cost. Because of the delays in choosing the final site, and the new exterior being redesigned for the Glendale location, having the roof designed in this manner was going to take an additional 6-8 weeks of design time; not to mention additional time for construction. The Cardinals apparently didn't want anymore delays...making this change probably would have meant not getting the stadium completed by the 2006 season. And, there had already been enough delays.
Working with the Cardinals. Nothing but praise for the Bidwills here. I should point out that this is NOT an NFL book; it is strictly an architectural book. There are some minor gripes about some of the things that went on in the process, but I get the feeling that not only are these kinds of things expected, but there are a LOT less of them than usual. You certainly get the feeling that the Bidwills had certain things that they insisted on, but also gave the designers and builders leeway in how to build them.
I still need to go through this book in even more detail, but am absolutely fascinated by it. The photography is amazing, and the amount of detail is fantastic.
