A Rams Thesis

By Patrick Londrigan

The St. Louis Rams have always been my favorite football team.  My father took me too my first game when I was eight years old.  This was when the Rams were known as the “Greatest Show on Turf.” It was also the same year they won their first and currently only Super Bowl Championship, so obviously the eight year old would fall in love with the Super Bowl champs.  But I remember the day so vividly; from my dad buying me my first jersey, a number 80, Issac Bruce jersey, to watching Marshall Faulk and Kurt Warner warm up, and when Issac Bruce came out of the tunnel and the crowd roared “BBBBRRUUUUUCCEEEE.” Although I had to look at my dad and ask them why they were “booing” my favorite player, then he informed me that they were yelling Bruce, so I cheered right along.  After that day I have been a die-hard fan. 

Today the St. Louis Rams are in jeopardy of losing their stadium and being moved to a new city.  So when the question “What do you want to do for your thesis?” was asked to me, I thought about it, but I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to design a new football stadium for the St. Louis Rams.  The Rams have been in St. Louis since 1995 and have played in the Edward Jones Dome since that time.  The Edward Jones Dome is a publicly funded stadium and is currently running out of money.  The stadium is anticipated to need $40 million in repairs over the next 15 years. While the owners of the stadium, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, expect to use all of there $16 million in savings in the next six years, the future of the team remains in limbo as negotiations between the Rams and the stadium authority drag on.  After the current season the Rams can break their 30-year lease, which would be a decade early, and rumors have it, that the Rams might be moving back to Los Angeles.

The purpose of this thesis is to create a piece of architecture that uplifts a community and helps the environment.  St. Louis has a fantastic fan base to support their local sports teams.  Those teams being the MLB baseball team the Cardinals and the NHL hockey team the Blues, but when it comes to the NFL football team the Rams the fan base has been dropping drastically over the years.  This new stadium will bring the not only the Rams fans back but fans of different teams and sports and tourists from all over.  This new stadium will keep my favorite team in St. Louis where I can continue to watch them play and one day be Super Bowl Champions again.