Dive Brief:

• Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), which the Washington Redskins hired in January, has revealed its preliminary design for the NFL team’s new stadium, which features a semi-transparent main arena and a surrounding moat for kayakers, according to The Washington Post. See a video of the design here.
• Ingels said the design, which "60 Minutes" released as part of a report on BIG, is inspired by the long-time football tailgating tradition as a "picnic in a park" and envisions the stadium will be used as a destination in the NFL off-season as well.
• The eventual location of the stadium is still up in the air. Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, officials are exploring the possibility of facilitating a Redskins move to a new site, but all proposals are in preliminary stages.

Dive Insight:

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has always wanted to explore innovation in a stadium design, and onlookers said they believe that a BIG design could go a long way in helping Snyder to secure a Super Bowl, according to The Post. Although BIG has never designed an NFL facility, Ingels told the Post in January that he was "proud to be part of imagining and designing the framework for the future of American Football."

Ingels also said he believes his firm can play a role in improving the typical football stadium design. "Is it (a) waste of resources to have giant facilities that are only active 10 times a year? Obviously," Ingels told The Post. "Therefore, we have worked with our team to imagine a facility that can be active both inside and outside all year and all week — not just on a game day."

In its search for a new home, the team has come up against some opposition due to its name, which many Native American groups consider offensive, and BIG, on those grounds, has come under fire from some critics for choosing to work with the team.

BIG, one of the buzziest names in the architecture world, is currently working on the Tishman Speyer skyscraper dubbed "The Spiral," intended for the Hudson Yards development in New York City. The Danish architecture firm is also behind Google's greenhouse-style 2.5 million-square-foot Silicon Valley campus and the stepped design of the 80-story 2 World Trade Center.