The 675,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment venue will be home to the professional basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. For the first time since the Dodgers left in 1957, Brooklyn will have a major league sports team to call its own. The Barclays Center will welcome some of the most exciting sports and entertainment events in the world: concerts, fine arts performances, circuses, college basketball games, ice shows, and music award shows are just some of the possibilities.

The Barclays Center will be a community centerpiece for the borough. FCRC has worked with local organizations to ensure the venue is an integral part of the community, where local college and high school athletes will have a new stage to showcase their skills. The Center will also host thousands of proud families and friends for college and high school graduations.

Barclays Center

The design of the Barclays Center achieves a striking balance between iconic form and performative engagement with the street. It is legible at multiple scales; on the skyline, from 5 blocks away, standing on the plaza and touching the front door, while maintaining an identity that delights visitors, neighbors, fans, and spectators.

Site Context and Development

Integrated into one of the busiest urban intersections in the New York metro area, Barclays Center will sustain a healthy, interactive dialogue with the surrounding streets and neighborhood. The Main Public Concourse is placed directly at sidewalk level - and predominately glazed where it meets the sidewalks to ensure direct accessibility and clear visibility in and out of the building.

Exterior Expression and Vision

The Main Public Entrance plaza links Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues and creates a flexible, welcoming yet grand Civic Space for use of the community and building occupants alike. Views and physical access both into and out of the arena will be plentiful, easy and accommodating and thus ensuring a strong connection to the surrounding urban environment. Functional spaces of the Arena are carefully deployed to provide activities and interaction 365 days a year – whether or not a major event is taking place in the building.

The master plan objectives and principles of the Atlantic Yards Development are fully achieved through the proposed integration of the Arena and all access elements on this site.

The overall vision for the exterior composition was to express the horizontality of the arena through the articulation of three bands. The first engages the ground plane where the weathered steel skin and void spaces float in front of the building, raising and lowering themselves to allow as much visual transparency inside as possible. This lower band also smoothly transitions into a grand civic gesture when it cantilevers out to make a spectacular canopy at the plaza at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. More than 30 feet in the air, the canopy contains an oculus that frames the pedestrian’s view of the arena when exiting the transit hub and approaching the main entrance. The second horizontal band is predominantly glass, dividing the upper and lower solid bands and allowing views from inside and outside of the structure. The third band floats around the roof of the arena and varies in its transparency as the weathered steel scrim creates backlit patterns around the ‘halo.’

During the day the void patterns on the skin allow light inside to expose the lace like structure within. At night the skin is softly back lit, reversing the patterns while direct views into the seating bowl and the scoreboards are allowed. The effect is a structure whose scale is mitigated yet still holds a presence as an iconic, sculptural, piece of architecture.

Interior Planning and Key Features

The multi-story main public lobby is entered by passing through a transparent glass curtain wall engaging the vibrant urban plaza. A large view portal between this entry space and the arena seating area allows views into the seating bowl from the plaza and Flatbush Avenue – and vice versa. The entire entry sequence has been carefully choreographed so as to give visitors orientation clues and heighten their sense of anticipation. In addition, visitors entering the lobby can directly access the main box office and the Nets team store, as well as find a view to the practice court that is one level below grade. This view in to the Nets practice facility will be available to passers-by on Atlantic Avenue as well.

The Barclays Center concourses are designed to be wide, graciously active and accommodating with well distributed food and beverage locations. All restrooms are strategically located and designed to be easy to find, are fully ADA compliant and are sized to accommodate internal queuing. Prominent,active retail spaces are integrated into the main public concourse so as to contribute to the street life and activate the internal space.

Ticketholders to the Barclays Center seating will experience one of the most intimate seating configurations yet designed into a modern multi-purpose arena. All seating types, from the most affordable to the most exclusive, have been designed with into the arena with the goal of all having the best view to the floor as possible – conveying a sense of being “right on top of the action”.

Barclays Center, in addition to being the home to the NBA Nets, will host a large variety of events throughout the year. From top name musical concerts, to family shows and community programs, the arena will be a hub of activity around the clock. To effectively manage the operations of this complex building type, all loading for events will be below grade and enclosed within the arena envelope. Additionally, access to the secure subterranean loading dock area will be via a specially designed semi-truck elevator that will ensure minimal impact to the street level environment.

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