As the globally beloved football club, Manchester United, sought to redevelop and expand its home ground of 115 years at the Old Trafford Stadium, British practice Foster + Partners were appointed to deliver a development plan for the stadium and the area at large, touted to be an architectural feat from the get go. With the vision of creating a world-class football destination expected to become the largest football arena in the UK, the firm has presented a masterplan for the Old Trafford Stadium District, comprising the landmark stadium amidst the urban mixed-use development that is set to benefit local communities and residents. “The outward-looking stadium would be the beating heart of a new sustainable district, which is completely walkable, served by public transport and endowed by nature. It is a mixed-use miniature city of the future—driving a new wave of growth and creating a global destination that Mancunians can be proud of,” says Norman Foster, Founder and Executive Chairman, Foster + Partners, in an official statement on the design's intentions to model a sports and cultural hub for visitors from Manchester, the UK and across the globe.

Nicknamed ‘The Theatre of Dreams’, the Old Trafford Stadium opened its doors in 1910 in Greater Manchester. The legacy-bearing sports architecture persisted through heavy damage during the Second World War and underwent several layers of renovation through the 1960s to the 2000s, with the most recent expansion in 2006 stretching its capacity to 76,000. “Our current stadium has served us brilliantly for the past 115 years, but it has fallen behind the best arenas in world sport,” says Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, in a statement. The new ambitious stadium design, planned to be built next to the existing legacy site and to accommodate a capacity of 100,000 fans, aspires to preserve the essence of Old Trafford in tandem with contributing to the “social and economic renewal” of the larger area.

A lightweight tent-like structure with a canopy supported by three towering masts is conceptualised as a nod to the trident from the club’s coat of arms and the city’s industrial skyline. The translucent canopy envelops the stands and shields the public plaza from rainfall. In doing so, the architects seek to invert the conventional model of football stadium architecture with an open and ‘outward-facing’ structure, dotted with balconies overlooking the enveloping development. The project was proposed as a globally recognisable landmark even in its inception, as the upcoming public architecture now aims to express Manchester United’s spirit and the city’s heritage. “It all starts with the fans’ experience, bringing them closer than ever to the pitch and acoustically cultivating a huge roar. The stadium is contained by a vast umbrella, harvesting energy and rainwater and sheltering a new public plaza that is twice the size of Trafalgar Square,” Foster shares in his statement.

The city’s history delineates the sports-led redevelopment project that reimagines the one-million square metre brownfield site into a full-fledged mixed-use district. The architects plan a mesh of green civic spaces, streets, bridges and waterfront areas in conjunction with a grid of direct transport and pedestrian connections between new and existing communities. The new urban design concept incorporates opportunities for harnessing rainwater and the use of renewable energy, checking all the boxes for what a contemporary urban redevelopment at this scale is deemed to be; it is ambitious, but with requisite caution, complete with noble intention. “Transformation of the area around Old Trafford forms an important part of our 10-year plan to turbocharge growth across the Greater Manchester region,” says Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, in an official statement. “By investing in public transport, infrastructure, homes and amenities around the new stadium district and relocating freight from the Trafford Park container terminal, we can unlock huge benefits for the whole of the north-west,” he adds.

The covered plaza, overlooking the adjunct Bridgewater Canal, encompasses an array of interactive experiences for visitors. The design draws a processional route from a new train station to the plaza, serving as a welcoming focal point for both gatherings and community events.

Owing to prefabrication techniques, Foster + Partners hopes to accelerate the construction process of the project and “build the stadium in record time”, as stated by Nigel Dancey, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners. The structure will be a composition of over 150 prefabricated modules, and will harness the network of the Manchester Ship Canal, a 58-kilometre-long inland waterway linking Manchester to the Irish Sea.

While the landmark stadium replete with the football club's iconic red is at the nexus of a larger urban facelift, perhaps even sentimentally driven, a reasonable degree of doubt is introduced by both, the fates of several high-profile architectural projects in the UK off late owing to battered national finances and incessant budget cuts, along with the dubious rate of progression for larger urban developments looking to remodel entire districts all across the world. In the case of Old Trafford, the association of Foster + Partners is an interesting albeit paradoxical paradigm, as the hint of celebrity raises stakes but also makes the fruition of such a project more likely.