 Welcome to ToffeeTV, got an exclusive interview with Dan Mistan, thank you very much. Sure, glad to be here. Let me begin by, what's the response being like since the console satan and then, since the stadium reveal? What's it been like for you? Well, it's been incredible because you know there was a long time where we had to keep it under wraps and we were seeing it every day and honestly I was a bit nervous because I'd seen it for a long time and held onto it for a long time and I knew there was a lot of anticipation but the day that we had the reveal and when the images came up, the reaction that just the energy in the room, it was incredible and it was incredibly rewarding that I feel like we really kind of got to what people were hoping for. How difficult was it to leave it all, leave it doing the sharing, messaging it down? How difficult was it to keep that to yourself? Yeah, it was definitely hard because it was quite a while and I had already gotten into the engagement with the fans and so it's hard to see thousands of people saying, when are we going to see something? You said you were going to update your website, are you not working on it? So it was difficult, I'm not great at keeping secrets anyway. Well, it's quite a big one and you've got a lot of people over there who are chasing it. What's the engagement like with the fans because I know what our supporters can be like and obviously you know you are quite open in that, you do have that back and forth with them. Do you find it frustrating? Well I've said this, no not at all, I've said this a few times, I've never had this experience where getting this, certainly this many fans engaged in the process and so it feels like they are part of it, which is really incredible and honestly they've had a lot of influence, it's very clear to me what they care about, where it's always a little funny is when I start to tweet something that has nothing to do with football or nothing to do with the rambling more and then I get into a different kind of engagement. But it's been incredible, it's like having a family, extended family and we're doing this together and it's not just doing something, it's like having a child together, it's something that's so important to everyone and I really appreciate that. So I've never had anything like it and I don't think I ever will, it's hard to imagine another club that I would ever have this kind of feeling for. Well, I mean we've seen you with the 1878 stuff in your offices and you've talked about it and it's quite obvious seeing the way you speak about the club and the designs and the enthusiasm, that you get it, why, what was it about this club that attracted you? Well I think a lot of it is, you know I didn't become an architect that designed stadiums because I was just a huge sports fanatic, I really recognize that they're a building that people engage in a different way from any other building, I could design the world's tallest building and people might recognize it but they're not emotional about it. This is something that it's everybody's home and so that's what drew me to sports architecture. This becomes the pinnacle of that because it's a club with generations of fans that are so emotionally connected to the history of the club, the history of the building, the history of the neighborhood and so I think it's really about that. And I didn't even see it coming, it kind of hit me that this is what I've always wanted to do with this building type, was to feel like I'm engaging with a club and to build them a new home and coming from one of the most historic buildings in English football, you know the challenge and the opportunity of all that's incredible so it's just different. I mean go to some parks, a fantastic old stadium, have you took inspiration from that from sitting there watching the games that you've seen and thought I suppose one of the biggest things was I'll do a replicate this as well as much as you can do obviously it's not a fan to anything else but has that been something that you've spent hours and nights and days thinking about? I think about it a lot and I have to tell you it's my on a daily basis it's a reminder that we can't lose sight of that because and I've talked about this a lot that I think we've seen some of the new buildings in the UK and elsewhere where they provide a lot of incredible new amenities are great seats and not not obstructed seats and things like that but you lose something in the magic and or you lose something very physical like West Ham being so far away from the pitch and so it would be easy to forget what is magical about a building like Goodison and I remember early on somebody tweeting to me and they and had the column in their view and I said you know I don't care I'd sit behind a column in Goodison every day before any other stadium because of the energy that you get of that so it's not something that was just inspirational at the beginning I think about it every day how do we capture this magic it's a lot about the scale of the building and trying to keep it really tight not just close to the pitch but the roof close and it can't be a giant cavernous building no matter what is on the concourse right it's a lot about that experience when you're in the bowl that's the seating bowl and feeling like you're close to it it's a hard thing to do I was gonna say it's it's difficult because I you see like lots of away supporters share on social media you know especially promoted teams or maybe come up and say I love this it's an old stadium and we've come in here and we'll miss it and stuff like that so that is the challenge and for us it's obviously from all of us we haven't gone anywhere else so to think about then moving somewhere else we want to take the best bit to Goodison and I win all the women I win a team as lovely as well of course but that is a big challenge for you but obviously the site is a it's in a fantastic location but how how difficult on what kind of challenges did that represent for you yeah they're they're big challenges to the site and you know I think it's it's really a credit to the club that they recognized again that not that could build this in lots of places and and you know they were the clubs gone through years of looking at other sites and in projects that they didn't move forward so I think there was such a focused commitment by the club and this owner to do this right and and they picked a site that's not only great from the club's perspective in terms of this incredible opportunity to make it iconic but but really from the city's perspective and the neighborhood and the the development that it will spur because of where it is all of those things make it an incredible location I think from everybody's perspective what it does though is it adds a lot of complication to the building in the building I mean it's we have a large part of the cost of the building is going to be just making a dock a buildable site you know filling it in and and dealing with the issues that of building on a site like that is a big part of the cost so but again I think the club was committed to that's something that has a greater good it wasn't about where's the least expensive place we can build a new building is it in your experience is this probably the toughest challenge you've had but certainly which they've been yeah I mean it's it's I've interestingly I've built on a river before I did a football stadium in Cincinnati yeah that it was I think we were just under construction and the river hit its 30 year flood or something and I was in the whole site was flooded out and so we all we instantly realized why we had put so much into raising the stadium up and all of that my project for Rome for us Roman is also along the river yeah so we've we've dealt with it a lot the difference is in both of those cases it's really about we know it's a site that every now and then is going to have to deal with the river in this case we've got the dock and making a buildable so that's probably the extra challenge of it and I don't think I've ever dealt with a site that's more you know visible to everybody not just the club and the fans everybody lives in Liverpool the whole country you know this is this is a legacy for the whole country and that was really important for us as we were thinking about the design that it couldn't just be some wild object that looked like it dropped out of the sky that it really had to feel like it grew out of that location one thing that we get asked a lot and it's slightly tongue-in-cheek I think is there is the rise and sea levels and have ever as that being taken into consideration because of where the stadium lies and stuff like that yeah it has and and honestly we started dealing with it almost the first few months of looking at this particular site and and I remember thinking really does it have to be that high and part of it helped us a bit because we're building it in a way that we're protecting the existing dock yeah so that you know if 200 years from now somebody wanted to remove the stadium the dock would still be there and we're not damaging it so part of lifting the stadium up and really meeting where the expected sea rise is helps us with that situation but again it adds more cost because you're building the stadium higher than you would you know normally have to do it but now it's been an important consideration there you go for everyone who's wondering about that there's the answer you've mentioned a few times iconic we say it's gonna be iconic on the river but what does iconic mean to you in terms of when you say yeah it's a difficult one but as opposed now that people have seen the stadium right it's more about what iconic means to you I suppose yeah it's funny because I do I do cross this word a lot in in the work that I do because they're big stadiums they're big buildings you know and and clients use it a lot they wanted to be iconic and unfortunately for me I think a lot of stadium architecture is not iconic you know it it's big and it's impressive and lots of things about a bit but for me when I try and explain what I mean when I say iconic it's easier to do with a piece of paper but like if I do this I could convince you with one line that it's a city opera house or the Eiffel Tower yeah the Empire State Building you know it's a that's what makes something iconic to me is that I can describe it in just a couple of lines and you recognize yeah yeah that to me is truly iconic and it gets applied to a lot of things architecture gets applied to a lot of things and when it's when it's really just a building not architecture you know there's so so it means to me something that that's easily recognizable that even a child can draw it because it's that powerful of a of a shape or an object or or simple too yeah I mean that's a that's a brilliant answer because we've got just some questions from our patrons they were all before we go on to them though it's this for you personally it's this the difficult period now you've you've spent that time preparing it that time keeping stung that time being questioned 50 million times a day probably never told you and it's out now you've shown everybody what's there everyone's excited and I've had the 3d glasses on and everything else I think we've had a brilliant engagement public consultation twice I think it's broke you know it's really good engagement within the city twice now it's almost it feels like to us it won't be to you but it feels like to us now this is like a dead space period when we're waiting for the next thing and people keep saying when the space in the ground we'll believe it and all I put it for you as an architect is this a is this a difficult period well it's it's challenging because there's really a lot of work to do okay you know and and obviously one of the reasons that we all wanted to make sure before we put images out in the public that it was an image that we could deliver so that's where a lot of the work went yeah you know that was unseen right can we do this can we can we can we get the capacity that we're looking for can we can we know that we can build this building for a reasonable budget all those kind of things and the dock infill now is a period of now that we've seen it and we know that this is the design that we're all talking about we have to to develop it at a level of detail that answers all the questions that you know that the risk in planning is that it gets called in and and questioned and so what we're doing is making sure we have the answers to all those questions and and that it's the right building on that site and so it's it's for me it's actually a very fun time because the stress of you know keeping it quiet is gone and so it really is about now kind of filling in the detail and the great thing for everybody is that it won't be they don't have to wait to see it come out of the ground that we've still there'll be a lot of new images in as we're developing the interiors and so the process will continue in it and and again I think it won't just kind of go quiet and you know wait for machines to show up so it won't be quick enough for us really let's be honest but but yeah the complexities of what you say in their new images will help let's move on to um onto some of our questions from the patrons uh Jason Jones says what are the plans for the immunity surrounding Bramley Mordow food club shop etc i mean some of this you probably you know i don't know whether you yeah i mean well you don't know but well what i know what i can talk about is from my experience that when you build a building like this in an urban setting in particular which this is and it's a part of this urban setting that hasn't developed very much of you know it's been it's been a little yeah just sort of left behind it will change and you know there will be entrepreneurs that have nothing to do with us in the club and that will come in and develop things around it too it will take on its own character i think it's really going to be a spark to the whole peel development because it's at that far end of it and now we'll start to work together so uh i don't want them to think that it's going to be just out by itself because that won't happen okay there you go stee hardy says can you ask him if he can find a better font for the everton on the side of the stadium apart from that it's absolutely magnificent i thought this question was going to a striker that's where i thought this was this was headache but uh no the font i and i've tried to say this a few times that um that came from us it was uh it was really just a placeholder and when we um you know we're designing the renderings the one thing that i always try and think about is you know that there's going to be building branding and and whether it's it's a name of the building one thing i really want to try and protect is is a name sponsor that bramley moore plays a role in that because bramley moore is one of those things that again like historic english football clubs you know old trefford uh uh craven cottage there are these things that right well of course but but but there's definitely a thing that was about the neighborhood or the area or the road and those things really carry history to them so um so really back to the renderings in the font it wasn't a design thing as as much as it is you know this is an opportunity for us to create some sponsorship it's absolutely magnificent apart from that state i think you let it off john crellen i don't know whether you know that well you will know this will there be escalators for the home fans getting to the upper tiers taking in to account some of us are getting older yep i am too so yeah it's on the baby the baby no there will be there will be there you go um rob diamond says why does the seating in the self-stand appear lower than east and west ends could the capacity be increased but is that just the way the drawing is the way it looks yeah i mean we do have it um if i understand the question we do have um more seating in the south the decks higher i mean the the the the seating is asymmetrical in that way it doesn't balance all the way out oh and part of that is about creating the larger home end uh i think what people forget about is that for all of the great things about the site it's you know we are kind of locked in there is a certain dimension that we can do and you know we studied very early on whether it should be east west versus north south and all of those kinds of things so part of what what uh has always i think gotten lost in the discussion about capacity is at some point you can only build so many seats on this on that site so but again some of that's still in flux and in you know as we what happens is we start to get to that next level of detail and you actually start laying seats out it comes down to you know how many centimeters do you have you know between seats and it multiplies all around and we'll see what happens we'll see what happens David Emberton says after being discussions uh when designing the stadium are possible nine areas of the stadium so obviously we see in north west seats itself i suppose is that is that something you play a part in or is that something that people decide about what we try and do is inspire it and uh and again that's part of the kind of development so this would be like the Gladysand or something right yeah exactly and that again is really important to a stadium not being um you know just generic yeah um i think i think that's really critical so what we're doing now is we're starting to really develop the interior spaces um that kind of thing will come out of it and uh i'm sure there'll be lots of influence it won't just come from us but um it's something that i will constantly be reminding about yeah this is very important really it's john hill says does he still love us the now he knows how much we are i do here's here's my one here's my one complaint is that i don't have the you know generations of uh of the ups and downs and so i'm more of optimistic i think i don't i don't have a lot of patience for people who turn so fast you know on a game or it's people forget and maybe this is because i've done sports for a long time it's really hard you know one team wins wins the championship and then everybody forgets it's really difficult so um i'm in for the long haul so i i yeah you're still all right i'm still it's not a shame he's all right don't be so pessimistic steven kelly says would there be an option to play other sports at the ground similar to spares or was that ever discussed yeah i mean in terms of something as um as aggressive as say an nfl game i would say no um it's not that it's not possible but um this is a football ground for goodness for for everton and uh you know through and through of course we get to have concerts and other types of events but um but i you know the focus and the the goal of the building is to be single purpose to ever just to have it brilliant um mark says what's the plans ideas have been discussed regarding implementing the latest technology in and around the stadium definitely um what happens what's you know these projects take years from the time you start to the time you open them and technology changes a lot in that time frame but but the good thing is we're coming online at a time that we get to look at what's been put into westam and spurs and even arsenal you know had did things that hadn't been seen in so and and world stadiums obviously not just uk stadiums but so we will be at the benefit of coming on when a lot of technology the great thing about is things have gotten lighter and smaller yeah video boards are cheap and and this thick when they used to be buildings and um led lighting versus versus yeah standard lighting all of those things will will be there and you know make a bet brilliant and based on your other projects can you imagine what kind of impact the new stadium will have on the identity of ever football club short and long term for example is it possible we will attract different kind can't people gonna attract different kind of players can't he but i mean if you've got some thought have you thought about what might impact this as in as opposed when you design in it do you actually think after it when when you come to to brand new mode on day one is Adam Galloway's asking how you're going to visit after it's built of course he is i may move here well there you go when you sit there is it possible for you to imagine the impact you're going to have on on this club and so many not just obviously you're not just there with your sand and cement yourself but i mean you've designed this and this is going to take us forward yeah i had i hope everyone realizes that i have a huge sense of um responsibility in that that i feel very lucky to have fallen in love with and become part of this club in this process and and it's it's a daily reminder you know again social media gives me a reminder every day about how important it is and it's again it's what's unique about this it's not just important like every every team i've ever worked with the fans want a new building you know that's exciting let's go to a new building it's going to it's going to give us a home pitch advantage where you know it's going to be exciting but this is much much more than this this is about who's the actual identity of the people that are fans of this club and and and that's why i'm so precious about goodison that um there's magic in that that it's not just about bricks and mortar you know and and so capturing that lightning in a bottle and bringing it forward and then being able to influence generations of fans to come that is what that real responsibility is and and the hardest thing about it is making sure that i i never forget it you know that it um it wants to inspire the same sort of love in a place that goodison did and i don't think you can do that by just doing some wild architecture which i get hired to do that all the time you know just give us some exciting thing this isn't about that this is really about something that is very unique to this club to this fan base and to the site and to the city okay well last one transport Paul Robert is a bit asking about transport a little bit concerned and all the club have put out information so far and we've gone along that but how do you see the transport the transport problem or issues yeah i will tell you that you know as long as i've been designing stadiums and arenas this issue comes up a lot in cities because we often have to find a site that doesn't have a lot of development around it because you need a lot of land what happens all the time is that people forget that the infrastructure is there millions of people come to the city every day and they figure out where they're going to park or what their public transportation is that's the great thing about building in a city it really does exist here it's just not apparent to people because they don't go there right now so it seems disconnected but it won't be it will all of that infrastructure will develop around it and and i think people will have a far better experience in many ways than goodison because goodison has its challenges given that it's right in the middle of a neighborhood and so i think there's much more opportunity here to to deal with transport not to worry yeah not to worry paul don't worry listen you've heard from the main man himself he's quite clearly invested in this club and on this day any with us our club is in safe hands thank you very much for your time thanks no we appreciate it sure you like that thanks