Some universities carve out a corner of their rec center or student union to accommodate gaming activity on campus. Others construct dedicated esports competition arenas, complete with retractable seating. Designers of Comets LANding, which opened in January at the University of Texas at Dallas, sought a hybrid unlike any esports facility they had seen. The resulting 16,000-square-foot space easily transitions from a union gateway and casual student lounge (the LANding replaced an underutilized campus pub) to an esports spectator venue worthy of hosting the National Association of Collegiate Esports annual convention in July. A signature design move is an exterior video display, comprising 28 individual panels, that measures 22 feet wide by nearly 13 feet high. The screen faces a reimagined campus green suitable for movie nights and athletics watch parties when not in use for esports competitions. Inside Comets LANding, visitors find 100 PCs, a production studio and another video screen viewable from both ground level and a second-floor gaming loft. The active interior and exterior spaces create a winning combination for UTD student services leadership, as well as casual and competitive gamers alike. “It’s funny, they sort of pride themselves on being a nerdier campus,” says Randall Daniel, SmithGroup’s design principal for the project. “They said, ‘Well, this is a regular thing happening in our student population. What if we aired that out, brought it into the light and made that something we use to build community on campus?’ They saw this as an opportunity to tap into the unique culture, to actually bring social networking out of something that was happening in dorm rooms and apartments. The pivot in this space was to make it more social, and also to not make it some dead space that only got activated once or twice a month.”
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Some universities carve out a corner of their rec center or student union to accommodate gaming activity on campus. Others construct dedicated esports competition arenas, complete with retractable seating. Designers of Comets LANding, which opened in January at the University of Texas at Dallas, sought a hybrid unlike any esports facility they had seen. The resulting 16,000-square-foot space easily transitions from a union gateway and casual student lounge (the LANding replaced an underutilized campus pub) to an esports spectator venue worthy of hosting the National Association of Collegiate Esports annual convention in July. A signature design move is an exterior video display, comprising 28 individual panels, that measures 22 feet wide by nearly 13 feet high. The screen faces a reimagined campus green suitable for movie nights and athletics watch parties when not in use for esports competitions. Inside Comets LANding, visitors find 100 PCs, a production studio and another video screen viewable from both ground level and a second-floor gaming loft. The active interior and exterior spaces create a winning combination for UTD student services leadership, as well as casual and competitive gamers alike. “It’s funny, they sort of pride themselves on being a nerdier campus,” says Randall Daniel, SmithGroup’s design principal for the project. “They said, ‘Well, this is a regular thing happening in our student population. What if we aired that out, brought it into the light and made that something we use to build community on campus?’ They saw this as an opportunity to tap into the unique culture, to actually bring social networking out of something that was happening in dorm rooms and apartments. The pivot in this space was to make it more social, and also to not make it some dead space that only got activated once or twice a month.”
