We asked AI to design a new stadium for Newcastle - and the results were just plain weird

A huge decision looms for Newcastle United. The club wants to play their football in an expanded and modernised stadium, and while it’s possible that they end up redeveloping St. James’ Park, the board have already recommended to the Saudi-led ownership that they knock down the grand old stadium and build a new ground in its place. It would be a huge change for both the club and the city that’s very literally built around one of English football’s great cathedrals.

But if the Magpies do knock it all down and start again, what will the new stadium – which is earmarked, as it stands, for a plot in Leazes Park which literally overlaps the current ground – actually look like? Will it be a worthy replacement? And how will the match day experience be affected?

As we can’t really answer those questions ourselves and frankly lack the funds to engage a team of architects to do it properly, we thought we’d turn to the next best thing, or at least something in the next few hundred best things – we asked AI to design a new stadium for us. Yes, perhaps it’s a largely pointless exercise, but as we discovered when we did the same thing with Manchester United’s proposed new ground, these algorithms combine a strangely impressive eye for design with a certain degree of psychedelic insanity. So let’s see what I came up with for Newcastle’s new home…

What Newcastle’s new stadium will look like according to AI

Let’s start with the exterior of this vast new 70,000-seater arena – and once again, we’re partly impressed and partly baffled by the concepts that the algorithm came up with.

“The stadium’s exterior draws inspiration from Newcastle’s industrial heritage and the iconic black-and-white stripes of the club’s kit,” the draft begins. “The facade features a striking pattern of alternating matte black steel panels and white-tinted glass, arranged in dynamic, diagonal bands that echo the movement of the River Tyne.

“At night, LED lighting embedded in the white glass panels can illuminate in choreographed patterns, turning the stadium into a glowing beacon visible across the city, much like the Tyne Bridge.”

Let’s be honest, that sounds both very modern and potentially genuinely spectacular. A properly black-and-white stadium, designed correctly, all flowing lines and clever lighting displays would make a fitting centrepiece to the city’s skyline. But there’s more.

“Rising from the structure are four towering corner spires, reminiscent of the pithead winding towers from the region’s coal-mining past - a tribute to the hardworking Geordie spirit that fuels the club’s passionate fanbase. Each is topped with a massive, rotating sculpture - one a miner’s lamp, another a football, a third a pint of ale, and the fourth a pasty.”

It’s at this point that we are starting to suspect that AI is taking the piss a little bit. The industrial heritage of the North East is a fine touchstone for elements of the stadium’s design, of course, but while Geordies undeniably enjoy a pint and a pasty as a people, it’s not necessarily something that needs to be immortalised. You may as well shape the stadium like a massive round stomach with ‘NUFC’ written on it. You can pick and choose which parts of the heritage you incorporate.

But what would all of this actually look like? Look, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about AI in recent months, it’s that it is absolutely terrible at generating images, so our expectations are low, but let’s see if the algorithm can come up with a good representation of this half-modern, half-industrial temple to football and pastry:

Jesus, no it can’t. It looks like a high-security prison designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, which has for some reason been built in the Gobi desert rather than Leazes Park – at least we hope the disturbing brown foreground is meant to be sand. The tower concept is at least partly represented, not that we can make out the pint or the miner’s lamp, but the exterior doesn’t really evoke the ebb and flow of the Tyne so much an evil warehouse built by Bertie Basset.

But hey, some parts of the fundamental concept sounded intriguing, so let’s leave the exterior to a real architect and head inside, shall we?

The match day experience in our AI ground

The building itself may be seen for miles around, but what’s on the inside counts just as much – so will the Newcastle fans be glad they made the short trip up from the Strawberry on a Saturday?

Once again, we’re torn between respecting the AI’s desire to incorporate genuine local traditions with the feeling that it’s extracting the Michael – for instance, one can enter ‘The Magpie Hall’, a multi-tiered fan zone apparently designed to be built beneath the ground itself, which is “styled like a grand Victorian train station in a nod to Newcastle’s engineering legacy” (nice) but also “food stalls serving Geordie staples like stottie cakes and pease pudding.”

Which is, again, not part of an entirely inaccurate characterisation of food culture in the North East, but some people do actually prefer to eat food which wouldn’t feature in a Buzzfeed list of The Top 10 Geordie Stereotypes.

Another feature would be the – and I promise I’m not making this up – ‘Coal Miner’s Tunnel’: “Replacing the traditional players’ tunnel, this feature is a gritty, brick-lined passage with low lighting and etched murals of mining scenes and famous Newcastle goals. It’s an intimidating gauntlet for opposing teams and a proud ritual for the home side, connecting modern football to the region’s industrial soul.”

It's hard to tell at this stage whether the AI is being sincere or not. Yes, Newcastle and its environs have a long mining history and the people are proud of their heritage, but this feels a little bit like building a new stadium for Blackpool in the shape of giant donkey, or lining it with images of a passed-out members of a hen party. We’re not sure whether the AI is trying to capture the spirit of Arthur Scargill or Margaret Thatcher.

The cherry on top of this especially bizarre pie – sorry, pasty – is the suggestion that before every match, “a lone piper plays ‘Sweet Lowland’ from the roof—a haunting tribute to the region’s musical roots”.

Now, leaving aside that Newcastle is a few dozen miles further south than an area traditionally connected with bagpipers, those familiar with the traditions of the region may find themselves puzzled by the choice of tune. So what is this song which will, apparently, help to connect the fans in the stands with their Novocastrian roots?

“In my earlier description of the stadium design for Newcastle United, I mentioned a pre-match tradition where a lone piper plays ‘Sweet Lowland’ from the roof,” the AI explains. “However, I should clarify that ‘Sweet Lowland’ isn’t a widely recognized traditional song tied to Newcastle or Geordie culture in the way I implied. It appears I may have misspoken or conflated it with something else.”

So to sum up, that ‘Sweet Lowland’ song is not “widely recognised” in the sense of “it was entirely made up.” Basically, please stop doing your homework with this stuff. It really does just chat some absolute rubbish at times…