Everton FC: Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium

AT LONG LAST...

Apologies that it has taken so long to update this blog.

I hope it will be a bit more clear that great care was taken to ensure we were designing a building that could be delivered, and could live up to the magical legacy of Goodison Park. While Bramley-Moore is a phenomenal site, it comes with unique challenges. Building a stadium is no easy task on a normal site, building on a water-filled historic dock significantly increases the complexity of that task. Much has been said about the new Tottenham stadium. It is impressive, no doubt, but at a reported cost of more than £1B comparing that building to what we are designing on Bramley-Moore is comparing apples and oranges.

Approximately £100M of our budget will be spent on preparing the site in such a way that we can build the stadium without damaging the historic fabric of the dock. That means the remainder of our construction budget must be spent with extreme efficiency. Fortunately, the magic of Goodison isn’t about fancy clubs and cheese shops but rather historic stands, steep, tight, and right on top of the pitch. It is a notoriously intimidating ground for opposing players and that is what we intend to bring to Bramley-Moore.

Our idea was for the stadium to feel as if it “grew out of the docks” ...to have a truly historic feel but also a very clear nod to the future. I have always loved the Liverpool Lime Station which has a mix of a traditional stone base with a light steel and glass roof.

I have been truly overwhelmed by the positive response to the renderings. We still have a way to go however, so please fill out the survey and encourage your mates to do so as well. I love the interaction and we have had some great ideas come through!

I will continue to update this regularly and will be posting ongoing process images here and on our social media channels.

As I have said, it is a labor of love and I feel a great responsibility to live up to the unparalleled history of this club and her generations of passionate fans. The new signings have been very exciting. I am confident it will be an amazing season!  🌊🌊🌊

DAN MEIS, FAIA, RIBA

Everton: Bramley-Moore Dock

"A Cauldron of Energy"

It was nearly three years ago that I was first introduced to Everton's CEO Robert Elstone, Deputy CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale and the club's extremely convivial Chairman, Bill Kenwright.  I had never, in my entire career, met a client group more focused on their community or more caring of their fans.  Their collective vision, to deliver a "football first" stadium that would be designed specifically for the generations of regular Everton fans, would ensure this project would be very different from the spectacular but often soulless corporate football palaces we have seen developed elsewhere in the U.K.  Everton, well known for being an innovative club of "firsts" would once again innovate by looking to its history and build a new ground that would deliver the best of the energy and intimacy of Goodison within a state of the art football ground.  I will always remember the words of Robert Elstone: "It should be a "cauldron of energy", with the steepest stands right on top of the pitch, and a massive home end!"  From that moment, I was hooked.  A few weeks later I saw my first game at Goodison, and I fell in love.  Like all attractions, there is something magnetic or chemical about it that truly does make one feel like you are "chosen".   I knew at that moment that it was different than any project I had ever pursued or any team I have ever followed...it was in my blood. 

It has already been a long journey with some twists and turns. These are extremely complex projects with a plethora of complicated stakeholders, so while I know that fans are extremely eager to see renderings, we are being careful to ensure that what we show, is what we will deliver.

The arrival of Farhad Moshiri as an extremely engaged majority owner and the emergence of Bramley Moore Dock as the preferred site were monumental milestones in this journey.  While the challenges of developing a stadium on a UNESCO World Heritage site are far from insignificant, the choice of Bramley Moore as the preferred site by the club was truly inspired, and further evidence of the commitment to the long term best interests of the team and the community.

I believe that the historic fabric of the dock is a priceless asset that will help inform a state of the art stadium unlike any other on the planet and one that will capture the magic and memory of Goodison Park.  I am striving for a design that feels like it "grew from the Docks" and can simultaneously look like it is from the future and yet has always been there.  Innovation doesn't always mean that a building has the latest bells and whistles, it can often be when a design is reduced to the very essence of its function.  One of my favorite quotes is of the author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"

THAT is our true challenge...

P.S. Someone recently tweeted to me that modern English stadiums are no longer intimate or intimidating...that they can't be because of modern regulations etc...  to that person I say..."just wait, and see"...

We will be updating this page soon.  Stop back often to see the progress of the project.  I promise there will be renderings!

DAN MEIS, FAIA