Client
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
Total Capacity
62,850
Disciplines
Collections
Tottenham Hostspur’s old ground, White Hart Lane, contained over a century of memories, but it could no longer live up to the standards expected in modern football. Spurs deserved a home that could match the club’s history and its status in the Premier League and European football.
The new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is designed to cultivate an extraordinary atmosphere. The spectator experience is incredibly intimate, even with a capacity of 62,850. That’s thanks to stands angled at 35 degrees — the steepest recommended in U.K. guidelines — bringing fans closer to the field than at any comparable modern stadium.
The 17,500-seat South Stand is the country’s largest single-tier stand, designed to generate a powerful ‘wall of sound,’ and includes 5,000 safe standing seats. Populous worked with U2’s sound engineers to optimise the stadium’s acoustics, fine-tuning the reverberation times to amplify the roar of the crowd.
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Enhancing the match-day experience for Tottenham Hotspur supporters was central to the design approach. The stadium’s general admission concourse hosts more than 60 concessions and three pub-style feature bars. Within the South Stand, the five-story Market Place atrium is a lively gathering place for fans before and after matches. It features street-food-style eateries, an on-site Beavertown microbrewery, and the longest bar in Europe, stretching the full 65-metre length of the goal line on the pitch.
Populous’ concept designs for the stadium’s premium facilities aimed to unlock hidden potential in underutilised spaces, opening up fresh revenue avenues for the club. This diverse array of private suites, sky lounges, premium lounges, bars, conference facilities and Michelin-star dining options caters to a wide range of budgets and preferences and can host up to 8,000 guests on event days.
I had the full guided tour of the new Spurs stadium, and I can safely say it’s the best football ground I’ve ever been to.
Created to be inclusive for everyone, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium features over 250 dedicated elevated wheelchair positions around the seating bowl, 66 fully accessible toilets, and hearing loops that provide audio-descriptive match commentaries. There’s a sensory suite too — a calming environment for supporters on the autistic spectrum or with sensory impairment conditions.
The stadium is the first purpose-built for NFL games outside the U.S., featuring a retractable natural turf pitch that slides under the South Stand in just 25 minutes, revealing an artificial playing surface. This allows American football to take place during the Premier League football season without affecting the quality of the natural turf pitch. The stadium now hosts two regular season NFL games each year as part of an ongoing partnership between the league and Tottenham Hotspur.
The system also offers ideal sightlines for American football by lowering the playing surface relative to the first row of seats, allowing fans to view the action over players and coaching staff on the sidelines. Add to that purpose-designed NFL locker rooms and other bespoke player, staff and media facilities, and the stadium has become a true home away from home for visiting NFL teams.
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Outside of football, the adaptability of the stadium has allowed it to host some of the biggest events in sports and entertainment, from a world heavyweight boxing title clash between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk in 2022 to five sellout Beyoncé concerts in 2023.
The wider stadium development scheme encompasses a new visitor centre called the Tottenham Experience, a gym, supermarket and a sixth-form school. Attracting around two million visitors a year, it buzzes with activity, thanks to stadium tours, retail spaces, conference and banquet facilities, cafes and F1 Drive, the first official Formula 1 karting experience, which features 180 metres of track beneath the South Stand. Upon completion, the project will create 3,500 jobs and inject a projected £293 million into the local economy each year, benefitting local businesses and offering fresh opportunities to the community.
Populous was the architect for the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium project, responsible for all aspects of the design of the scheme from 2014 and the initial concept stages, through to the completion of construction works in 2019. The full development incorporates the stadium, a new visitor centre and the Club’s new headquarters building. Future developments include an extreme sports building and a hotel.
Populous’ specialist brand activation team delved into the history of the Club’s brand identity to deliver an authentic scheme for environmental graphics. The primary focus involved embedding the Club’s history into the fabric of the building itself, creating statement gestures like the huge concrete letters on the building’s north face spelling out the Club’s motto, which will endure for as long as the stadium is standing.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium required a creative alternative to traditional wayfinding methods to support the stadium’s complementary mix of uses. At the core of the design is the incorporation of LED technology into classic wayfinding totems to create variable digital signage. This provides the building’s operations team with a significant degree of flexibility, allowing event-specific information to be displayed and last-minute changes or messages to be quickly programmed.
Populous has created a landscaped realm inspired by the Club’s history and the local area, establishing a new ‘greenway’ for fans and the local community to use and explore. All aspects of the development — retail, residential, hotel and experiential — are encompassed in the precinct to create a series of spaces that link together seamlessly.
Populous partnered with its sister company, Jump Studios, to deliver the design for the stadium’s general admission concourse spaces, incorporating 61 bars, eateries and coffee shops. Highlights of the scheme include three pub-style feature bars, an expansive food court inspired by local street markets and the world’s first in-stadium microbrewery, developed in partnership with Beavertown Brewery. Populous and Jump Studios were also responsible for the concept designs for the stadium’s premium hospitality areas.
Continuing Populous’ long-standing partnership with the NFL, our Events team is tasked with delivering the NFL’s annual London Games Series, with matches hosted at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley Stadium. Drawing on the expertise of architects and specialist event planners from across our global practices, the scope of service spans overlay design, accreditation, wayfinding, operations and transportation
Total capacity
62,303
Single-tier South Stand capacity
17,500
Premium seating capacity
8,000
Food and drink outlets
61
Jobs created
3,500
Distance from stands to pitch
4.9m – 6.9m
2021
2020
2019
Client
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
Architect & Principal Designer
Populous
Interior Designer
Jump Studios – A Populous Company
Tottenham Experience Designer
Populous
Planning Consultant
DP9
Roof Structural Engineer
Schlaich Bergermann Partner
Shell & Core Structural Engineer
Buro Happold Engineering
Retractable Pitch Engineer
SCX Special Projects
M&E Consultant
Buro Happold Engineering
Quantity Surveyor
Arcadis
Landscape Architect
Populous
Main Contractor
Mace
Premium Hospitality, Player Facilities and Tottenham Experience Fit Out
BASE Contracts & F3 Architects
Perspectives
Perspectives
Perspectives
April 17, 2019
Perspectives
Perspectives
Perspectives
April 15, 2019
Perspectives
Perspectives
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Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
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