The Young Matilda

It will likely be the biggest NFL game ever staged outside of North America. When the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers clash in Melbourne, Australia, in September this year—part of the NFL International Series—there could be more than 100,000 fans in attendance. The person charged with ensuring they all find their way around the venue is Populous’ Sophie Hogben. This 30-year-old, who works in the practice’s Brisbane office, is wayfinding design lead for the Asia-Pacific region. Thanks to her many years of competing in international football and wakeboarding, she adds to her architectural expertise a wealth of experience in pro sports.

Brought up in Cairns, in the tropical region of northern Queensland, Sophie first started playing football at the age of five. For the next eight years or so, she regularly competed with both girls and boys, an experience, she says, that toughened her up. “When I played football, I never thought about it,” she says of this sport she fell instantly in love with. “It was innate. I could feel what was going to happen before it happened. I was very good at reading the game. I wasn’t the fastest and I was one of the smallest. But I was fit, so I could run all day.”

It wasn’t long before Sophie had been selected for her national girls’ football team, the Baby Matildas. The height of her football career, however, was as midfielder with Australia’s under-20s team, the Young Matildas. Later on, she competed internationally in wakeboarding. Over the years, both sports took her all over Asia and the Pacific region, to more than 30 different countries. After studying architecture, in 2023 she joined Populous. Since then, she has worked on projects as varied as University of Tasmania Stadium, Brighton Homes Arena, GMHBA Stadium, Mission Whitten Oval, and Adelaide Airport (all in Australia), and Kai Tak Sports Park (in Hong Kong), and One New Zealand Stadium (in New Zealand).

Her experience in elite sport has armed her with confidence in her second career. “Sport gave me the ability to mix with anyone,” she says. “It exposed me to many different groups of people, both in football and in wakeboarding. Now I can be in a room with any kind of person—from academics to mechanics—and there’s something there I can draw on; I can relate to them.” More importantly, though, she now knows what it’s like to use sports venues as both a spectator and an athlete. “Having been through the player journey on game day, I can picture what it is about a stadium that works, and what doesn’t work,” she says.

She uses the example of athlete transport. In order to place athletes in the best possible frame of mind, their journey to the stadium before competition, and their pre-game preparation, must be convenient and seamless. “You need to get that right as an architect,” she adds. “If you don’t support the player journey before the game, then an athlete can’t perform because it disrupts their preparation. They’re not in the zone; they’re not mentally there.”

All her experience will be invaluable when it comes to the NFL International Series game in Melbourne in September. The wayfinding at this event will be vital, she points out, as so many of the Australian fans will be attending their very first American football game. Add to this the two teams and their vast entourages who will have travelled to the antipodes. She says the logistics of moving the LA Rams and the San Francisco 49ers from airport to hotel to stadium must be organized with military precision. With Sophie in charge of wayfinding, they are all in good hands. This Young Matilda has an old head on her young shoulders.