By Austin Miller, GTM Lead, Esport Supply
Esport Supply designs a university esports facility by first understanding what the program needs the space to accomplish, then working those requirements into the layout, infrastructure, and technology plan. That can involve stakeholder discovery, CAD review, 2D layouts, 3D renderings, power and network planning, and coordination with the campus teams responsible for the building. There are a lot of moving pieces, but the basic idea is straightforward: make the important decisions on paper before they become expensive decisions in the room.
The Design Starts With the Program, Not the Floor Plan
One of the first things we try to understand is what kind of esports program the university is actually building. A varsity competition space has different needs from a student recreation lab, and things get more interesting when a university wants the same facility to support competition, casual gaming, academics, recruiting events, broadcasting, and student organizations. That’s fairly common, which is why jumping immediately to a station count or equipment list can create problems later.
Our esports facility design process starts with a needs analysis involving the people who will have a stake in the project. A coach may be thinking about team practice while student affairs is considering open play, IT is focused on network requirements, and university leadership is thinking about recruiting and campus tours. These aren’t competing priorities so much as different expectations for the same space. The Whole Building Design Guide, developed by the National Institute of Building Sciences, emphasizes this kind of integrated planning, where stakeholders and technical specialists work together rather than making decisions in isolation.
Then We Find Out What the Space Will Actually Allow
Once we understand the program, we can start working with the physical space. That may involve reviewing architectural drawings or CAD files and developing 2D layouts showing where gaming stations, competition areas, broadcast positions, displays, furniture, and coaching areas could go. It’s also where we begin testing whether the university’s expectations fit the available room.
This is usually where the wish list meets reality. Every additional row of gaming stations takes up space that can’t serve another purpose. A large competition area might look fantastic but make circulation awkward, while broadcast equipment needs a practical location that doesn’t interfere with players. Accessibility, movement through the room, and comfortable workstation spacing all need consideration from the beginning. There’s almost always some give and take, and I actually think that’s healthy. It forces everyone to decide which features matter most instead of trying to squeeze everything into the available square footage.
3D Renderings Turn the Floor Plan Into a Conversation
After the layout begins to settle, 3D renderings help people picture the finished facility. They’re useful for evaluating furniture, displays, branding, lighting, sightlines, and how different areas relate to one another. More importantly, they give people who aren’t accustomed to reading architectural drawings a meaningful way to participate in the design discussion.
A coach, administrator, donor, or student leader may understand the layout much better once it becomes a three-dimensional room. That’s often when someone notices that a display looks too small, a walkway feels crowded, or the competition area doesn’t have the visual impact everyone expected. I don’t think of renderings as the finished design. They’re a way to test ideas and make sure the people involved understand what they’re agreeing to.
The Infrastructure Conversation Needs to Happen Early
A room full of gaming PCs, displays, broadcast equipment, and networked devices creates requirements for power, data, internet connectivity, cooling, and cable management. Those systems need to align with the layout, and changing one can affect several others. Moving a row of gaming stations, for example, may also mean reconsidering electrical connections, network drops, and how cables reach the equipment.
Our role is to identify the technology requirements of the esports environment so campus IT, facilities staff, architects, engineers, and contractors can incorporate them into their respective plans. This reflects a broader principle in educational facility design. An EDUCAUSE case study of Ohio State University’s Digital Union describes how technology, furniture, lighting, comfort, and flexibility were considered together when planning a shared campus space.
We’ve covered the technical considerations in greater detail in our article on network and internet infrastructure for esports facilities. From a design standpoint, the important thing is getting the right people involved while the plans are still flexible.
A Good Design Usually Changes Before It’s Finished
I’d be a little suspicious of an esports facility plan that never changes. IT may identify a technical limitation, facilities may uncover something unexpected in an existing building, or the university may decide that one function deserves more space than another. Those discoveries aren’t necessarily signs that something went wrong. They’re part of turning an early concept into a facility that can actually be delivered.
What matters is that the changes are deliberate and everyone understands their impact. A university might decide to reduce the number of gaming stations to make room for a broadcast area, or simplify a competition feature to preserve flexibility for everyday student use. Neither decision is inherently a compromise in quality if it helps the facility better serve its intended purpose.
By the time equipment is ordered and installation begins, the university should understand why the major elements are located where they are, what infrastructure supports them, and how the room will accommodate its different activities. That’s what a thoughtful design process should deliver. Not simply a rendering everyone likes, but a coordinated plan that makes sense to the students using the facility, the staff operating it, and the university responsible for maintaining it.
