The Athletic Department has selected the Crawford architectural firm to design the Franklin Field Pavilion, with construction slated to begin this summer.
The project will turn the northern concourse of the stadium into a state-of-the-art weight training center.
David Murphy and Stacey Jones - both of whom received their Masters degrees in architecture from Penn 20 years ago - will helm Crawford's team.
They won a competitive bid process among several "extremely qualified" firms who submitted presentations, according to Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky.
Crawford, he said, best satisfied the criteria most important to Penn. First, their designers respected the legacy of Franklin Field, which was built in 1895 and is the oldest NCAA stadium still used for football.
"They really understood what restoration meant," Bilsky said. "Whatever the design ultimately looked like, it had to fit into the more historic nature of Franklin Field and the whole Penn campus."
But the company's experience with sports facilities was the deciding factor.
Crawford designed the Baltimore Orioles' Camden Yards, which opened in 1992 and quickly became the model for the baseball stadium boom that followed. Other projects include the renovation of Lambeau Field and Fenway Park; Crawford came up with the idea to put seats on top of the Green Monster.
Jones also was the architect of Turner Field, and Murphy was the mind behind several facilities at the 2000 Olympics.
"They get it," Bilsky said. "They really do."
Jones had originally agreed to an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, but Penn Associate AD Michael Diorka later said that nobody from Crawford would be available until after a four-month "schematic design and development phase."
Bilsky said that the original artist's renderings of the project were really "feasibility studies." Now, Crawford is examining all the details - environmental, engineering and cost issues, as well as blue prints - to create the final design.
And as of now, according to Bilsky, everything is "moving along, on target."
-David Gurian-Peck
