Sam Wright is director and sports lead with global architecture practice, WilkinsonEyre. He has delivered award-winning projects including the London 2012 Olympic Games Basketball Arena and the masterplan and main venue for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Park
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In the wake of England’s female rugby union team’s crowning moment – winning the recent World Cup at the UK’s Twickenham stadium watched by a record 81,885 fans – I’ve been thinking about what it means beyond the game. To me, it’s clear: women’s sport has arrived. Now it’s the built environment’s turn to catch up.
That viewing figure stuck with me. It says a lot about appetite and ambition. When women’s sport is given the stage it deserves, the crowd follows. It’s a reminder that how we design and operate stadia needs to evolve to reflect who’s coming through the turnstiles and on the pitch.
Momentum in women’s sport is growing universally. The Lionesses swept to victory in the 2025 Euros and continue to redefine football. Commercial investment is growing. The Lord’s Cricket Ground has just confirmed it’ll host its first women’s Test in 2026 – fifty years after Rachael Heyhoe Flint led England Women. These aren’t isolated events; they’re part of a pattern that’s reshaping how we value women’s sport
But here’s the thing: most stadia we have were built for a different audience. They still assume a ‘male default’ – men as the main users, everyone else as an afterthought. It’s not deliberate exclusion, but inherited thinking that hasn’t caught up. In 2025, design standards need to evolve to reflect this wider fanbase.
Designing beyond the default
If we want record-breaking crowds to become the norm, inclusion can’t be a bolt-on. It must be baked in from the offset. That means thinking about comfort, safety, and accessibility as baseline performance criteria.
It starts with practical shifts that make a difference: well-lit concourses that ensure safe circulation; amenities that serve everyone equally; layouts with adjustable seating, clear sightlines, and family or sensory-friendly areas. Behind the scenes, balanced facilities and training for staff and athletes reinforce an inclusive culture. Ultimately, it’s about designing for the spectrum of people who bring these venues to life.
At our Compton & Edrich Stands and our new Tavern & Allen Stands at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, inclusivity is integral. Simple steps, like introducing swing toilets help address the imbalance in current standards.
We’ve also worked closely with the Marylebone Cricket Club to ensure the match day experience goes beyond the prevalence for ‘men drinking beer’ that pervades stadia design. The hospitality and F&B offer needs to be more nuanced. It helps that UK cricket attracts a more cultural and family-centred audience, than the male bravado that dominates football terraces.
The same human-centred ethos has guided our projects globally, shaping how we design and build. In Rio de Janeiro’s Cariocas Arenas, inclusivity was embedded in the base design to enhance comfort and independence for all visitors. Rather than serving as an enhanced Paralympic mode, it’s designed for legacy use, not the Games. Even operational changes, improving circulation and lighting, can measurably improve fan satisfaction and repeat attendance, supporting sustained revenue.
Beyond match days
I’ve long believed stadia should be more than single-purpose event venues. To justify the investment and carbon, they need to earn their place in the city every day. Think community hubs, not just sports arenas: for education, health programmes, food markets, concerts, and public services. When a stadium becomes part of local daily life, it stays relevant, useful, and loved.
Take the Marylebone Cricket Club’s community initiatives, from after-school clubs to coaching through the Lord’s Hub, their success shows how this mindset can reshape a stadium’s social and economic contribution. And this isn’t unique to London. In Rio de Janeiro, our work on the Carioca Arena’s demonstrates it in action. The Arena now houses the Isabel Salgado Olympic Educational Gymnasium for 900 students. Meanwhile the Carioca Arena 1 was transformed into an Olympic Training Centre – illustrating how legacy design can drive education, innovation, and talent long after the Games have ended. Importantly, these initiatives were embedded into the Olympic footprint from the outset, not afterthoughts.
Even the ‘Arena of Future’ designed for the 2016 Rio Olympics, carries this forward. It exemplifies demountable design – a 12,000-seat structure engineered for disassembly and community reuse. This nomadic model is becoming essential for creating adaptable, reusable stadia. Demographics change, technology moves fast: if a stadium can flex, it survives; otherwise, it risks obsolescence.
And this isn’t just on architects. Everyone has a role – clubs, federations, local authorities, sponsors. Procurement briefs should set inclusion as a minimum standard. Post-occupancy evaluations should ask who’s being left out and how to fix it. We’re starting to see governing bodies like UEFA and Sport England tighten requirements, alongside campaigning by This Girl Can. That said, the onus remains on the design team to embed inclusion beyond compliance.
The Red Roses’ triumph wasn’t just about rugby; it was about visibility and progress. For me, it underlines a simple truth: the spaces that host sport shape how it grows. So, when the next record crowd arrive- for football, cricket, rugby, whatever’s next – I want every fan and player to feel that the place was designed with them in mind. Because as expectations evolve, inclusive design will determine which stadia stay relevant and which fall behind.
