Situated within Ottawa’s urban center, Lansdowne Park has been a historically significant sports and entertainment destination since its 1967 inception. In 2009, the City of Ottawa embarked upon a major redevelopment of the 40-acre site, transforming the existing stadium, repurposing the park’s heritage buildings, and adding 460,000 square feet of combined retail and commercial spaces.
In honoring the rich history and strong identity of Lansdowne Park, the redesigned TD Place Stadium drastically departs from the traditional notion of a stadium as an inert building in a sea of parking and instead takes on a position that architecture represents the dynamic intersection of people and built form.
The new south stands are conceived as emerging from the park. This natural connection is perhaps most evident in the stadium’s signature element: the expansive glue-laminated Alaskan yellow cedar canopy, more affectionately referred to as the “veil.” It rises organically from an engineered landscape berm and curves gently over the grandstands to provide shelter and shading for spectators and pedestrians alike. The generous berm that emerges from the lower elevation and south stands helps reduce the total visible height of the stadium, creating a more modest site impact.
The interior design and how it would enrich the fan experience proved a key focus of TD Place Stadium. The east side of the new seating bowl blends into the landscaped berm, while the west end (the city end) blends into an urban plaza that is framed by commercial and residential buildings.