Upstate Modern MAKING METROPOLITAN AMERICA ALONG THE ERIE CANAL
Upstate Modern is a series of courses and public programs at Syracuse University examining the urban history of Upstate New York through transdisciplinary research that draws on archives, buildings, landscapes, and communities.
Carrier Dome as a Technical and Cultural Environment
by SaDe’ Lewis.
The Syracuse University “Dome” athletic arena, which was proposed after the August 1978 decision to no longer build a Skytop complex, but instead construct a new stadium on the site of the campus’ then current Archbold stadium.
Over the course of the semester I have been researching air conditions through the lens of a specific case study, the Carrier Dome. As a beacon and/or icon of the Syracuse University campus, the Carrier Dome also happens to play a divergent role as part of a shift to interior domed sports complexes; specifically relating to the domed stadiums utilizing the newly advancing technology of fabric, air supported roofs. My goal is to look through the lens of this specific building to explore the notion of what “air conditioning/conditions” is not only amidst the technicality of producing an air supported roof, but also through the more socially charged notion of what I would consider cultural air conditions.
For the Technical basis of my research I have been focusing my investigation, using the skills I possess as an architectural student, through the means of examining working drawings. I have also been looking through newspaper clippings from the period when the dome was created, statements produced by the university, and articles explaining how the carrier dome fits into a larger material shift in stadiums.
Socially and culturally I have based my exploration on scholarly texts discussing the psychology of sports and spectatorship. Using this research as a basis from which to proceed, I plan on using first-hand witness accounts and my own personal social and cultural experiences within the Carrier Dome, being a Syracuse University athlete, to demonstrate the points regarding the specific atmosphere that is created.
The series of documents I have curated directly follow the lineage of my research, consequently the curatorial entries run chronologically. Starting from the beginning with the proposed Dome demonstrating the air supported roof to the final proposal and its imagined means of examining working drawings. I have also been looking through newspaper clippings from the period when the dome was created, statements produced by the university, and articles explaining how the carrier dome fits into a larger material shift in stadiums.
Socially and culturally I have based my exploration on scholarly texts discussing the psychology of sports and spectatorship. Using this research as a basis from which to proceed, I plan on using first-hand witness accounts and my own personal social and cultural experiences within the Carrier Dome, being a Syracuse University athlete, to demonstrate the points regarding the specific atmosphere that is created.
The series of documents I have curated directly follow the lineage of my research, consequently the curatorial entries run chronologically. Starting from the beginning with the proposed Dome demonstrating the air supported roof to the final proposal and its imagined interior environment. The lineage then shifts from proposal or suggestion to the construction phase. The formality and functionality of the dome and how it actually works is illustrated through multiple mediums, such as photographs, working drawings and diagrams. This arrangement was chosen as the best method to use in order to visually explain the complexity of the Carrier Dome’s construction.
The curatorial entries then shift towards the experiential and cultural aspect of the research through a photograph comparison between the newly finished barren stadium verses the stadium at full capacity for the first football game. This layout is used to illustrate the difference between the technicality of the physical construction and the constructed “space” created by spectatorship. These “spaces” and experiences are what I would define as the “cultural air conditions”. My final curatorial entry piece is to illustrate the experience the technical air conditions support, thereby supplying an architectural basis for the “real” space to be created, the “CULTURAL SPACE.”
This interior rendering, of the envisioned environment of the proposed on campus dome, shows the “space” of performance contrasted against the “space” of spectatorship.
The Ring Beam is a larger u-shaped beam that runs along the top of the box columns. It is the location where the lower concrete structure is connected to the Teflon-coated fiberglass fabric.
This diagram explains the air supply and return system through a typical cross-section of the Carrier Dome.
This sectional elevation drawing represents one of the final images, pre-actual existence, which imagines the interior and exteriority of the proposed dome and visualizes how the relationship between the other areas.
This plan and elevation describe a typical HVAC room for housing the large fans that supply the air to inflate the domed roof.
Thirty-six sixty-foot hollow box columns are the first items installed following the foundation walls. They will not only be the major supports for the dome, but they are also play a major part in the air supply system.
These are the large six-foot wide fans, shown in the typical HV room, that individually have the capacity to generate 95,000 cubic feet of air movement per minute in the plenum of the double layer fabric room.
This picture displays the spectacle that is created when the dome is transformed by the act of spectatorship.
One of the original proposed renderings, illustrating the concept for the dome’s physical appearance, that ended up showcasing the appearance of the Carrier Dome as it really looks today.
This is a view of the finished dome, shortly after its completion, clearing demonstrating the blank canvas of the stadium prior to its transformation into something entirely different once it becomes occupied.
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