Q & A
Do you see arena design as an art or a science?
Well it is obviously both. I like to think it is art built on just a little bit of science. Obviously, there are formulas that drive the geometry so that a particular person seating in any three-dimensional space can see a point on the floor. And that’s really the science of it. But from there on, I think it's wide-open as to how you interrupt that and what you are trying to achieve with it.
No matter what, these are big buildings and they are big spaces. The last thing you want to do is to create space that everybody thinks is not intimate, is inhuman, is detached from the event on the floor. So what you are trying to do is to develop a space where everybody feels they are a part of the action, they are connected to the floor. There are certain things that you can do to trick the mind into thinking that the room is a lot more intimate than what it really is. You've got to understand what is the issue that makes that happen. And that is really the design or the art of what we do.