❝Listen first and then dream.❞ | Inspiration Behind the Design of the OKC New Arena | OKC Thunder

❝Listen first and then dream.❞ | Inspiration Behind the Design of the OKC New Arena | OKC Thunder

If you did a dimension, the ask of us was design a building that reflects the spirit of competition, but also embraces unity, community, and strength. I remember being asked, “What’s it going to look like?” And I said, “I can’t wait to find out.” We showed up with zero preconceptions. We were not coming to this city with an idea of what it had to be or what it should be already and trying to sneak that through. This has been a extraordinarily integrated process, right, between this the mayor, the city manager, the city itself, all the entities and the Thunder. Never had a room come together with so many people in it willing to voice their opinions, willing to think about what this project really means to the city and the constituents that they represent and all those things. We have a beautiful setting downtown. It’s right in the middle of downtown, which is incredible off the garden. And this idea that it was an arena tucked in the the landscape was really important, too. And we thought, you know, we should be acknowledging that in the site plan and understanding how do we translate over that road into our site and how do we set the new building in that so you have these beautiful vantage points. As you walk the gardens, you get the glimpses of this building. We came here to the Myriad and we’re walking around and trying to get a feel for uh for the space. When we toured the building, it was interesting. And the thing for us coming into town was that we didn’t have our first concert there. Our grandparents didn’t have their first concerts there, but the people here did, right? They have memories of that. That was a huge part of the inspiration, too. So, it was a really important part of how we thought about it because the responsibility with designing something on that site wasn’t just to sort of honor what happened then, but it was to sort of make something people would be proud of, you know, for the new home of the venue. Oklahoma City is about togetherness. It’s about unity. It’s about community. It’s about authenticity and transparency and uh integrity. And those kinds of words began to resonate with us. As we started to think about what the building was, it wasn’t a building that we thought you looked at. We thought it was a building you looked into. Much like an athlete digs deep for performance, much like you as yourself dig deep to achieve your goals. The spirit of competition is what happens inside the building. Right? It’s not about the building being anything. The building is not the representation of the spirit. the spirit is happening on the court or on the floor. You know, it’s the performance, it’s the basketball. Uh so the building is more about looking into it than what the building means from the outside as a as an object looking at it. You’re looking through it. It’s about transparency. It’s about the city as a backdrop to the entire experience. It’s about everyone in the building being together in one space. Not just in the seating environment, but also in all the concourses. When you’re walking around the upper concourse, you can look down to the main concourse. Or when you’re walking in the main concourse, you can look up and see the people in the upper concourse 360° around the whole building. That’s never been done before. And that’s where I’m talking about this idea that the whole crowd is together in one space. And that’s the thing that I got out of uh all my listening and really understanding and and immersing myself in the culture of Oklahoma City is that we’re all in this together. You know, I like to think what Loud City could be in the future is so much more than what Loud City can be today because people are so much closer to the action than they have ever been. They will ever will be. And that’s going to be awesome. The defining moment is this idea that everyone feels as though it’s part of one crowd. When you look across the bowl, it’s basically just an unbroken sea of of fans. There’s really no other building like it in the world. And that’s where this idea of one of one came from. It was out of that idea that there would be no other place like it and it would be based on what Oklahoma City is really all about and where it’s going.

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