The Intuit Dome opened on August 15, 2024 as the new home of the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers — and immediately set a new global benchmark for sports and entertainment venue design. The $1.8 billion, 1.1-million-SF arena in Inglewood, California was conceived by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer as "a temple for basketball and performing arts for the 21st century," and every aspect of its design reflects that ambition.
The complex includes the 17,700-seat arena bowl, five basketball courts (more than any other NBA arena), an 85,000 SF practice facility and training center, a 71,000 SF office building for team operations, a 25,000 SF sports medicine clinic, 48,000 SF of retail and dining, and an 80,000 SF multipurpose outdoor plaza. The arena's exterior — a 2,700-ton diagrid structural steel frame inspired by a basketball net — has become an instantly recognizable Inglewood landmark.
The Intuit Dome is the first NBA arena to achieve LEED Platinum certification and is designed to operate 100% carbon-free from opening day. It earned ENR's 2025 Project of the Year in the sports and entertainment category, along with excellence in sustainability recognition — among the most comprehensive award haul of any arena project in recent memory.
Designing an HVAC system for a 17,700-seat arena presents a fundamentally different challenge than any conventional commercial building. The occupant density is extreme, the load profile shifts dramatically and rapidly between a packed game and an empty building, and the system must perform across wildly different event types — from NBA games to concerts to community events — without compromising the experience for any audience member in any seat.
The Intuit Dome's design team set an additional layer of ambition on top of standard arena requirements: the system had to support LEED Platinum certification, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from day one, and 100% outside air delivery to the seating bowl, locker rooms, and player areas. That last requirement — 100% outside air to the bowl — is a meaningful departure from conventional arena HVAC, which typically recirculates a significant portion of conditioned air to reduce energy load.
Henderson Engineers' solution was to build the HVAC strategy around the mild Southern California climate, using it as a free resource: outside air in Inglewood is conditionable with far less energy than in most U.S. markets, making 100% outside air delivery viable without the energy penalty it would carry elsewhere. The system incorporates heat pumps, heat recovery chillers, and highly efficient magnetic-bearing chillers to minimize energy consumption across the full load range.
The remaining challenge was delivery: how do you get conditioned air to every one of 17,700 individual seats without the energy waste and draft discomfort of traditional overhead distribution, and without the visual and acoustic intrusion of ductwork hanging over the arena bowl?
Henderson Engineers specified an under-seat supply air distribution system — delivering conditioned air directly from beneath each seat rather than from overhead ductwork. The concept is consistent with displacement ventilation principles: introduce air at the occupant level, where it does the most thermal work, rather than mixing it throughout the entire room volume from above.
AirFixture was engaged to supply and customize the diffuser units for this application. Working closely with Henderson Engineers and AECOM, AirFixture modified its Élan-06R personal diffuser to create a custom wall-mounted air terminal suited to the specific geometry of the arena bowl seating. The units are mounted horizontally to the wall beneath each seat row, delivering air at low velocity directly toward individual seated occupants.
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AirFixture supplied over 6,000 Élan-06R units throughout the arena, each with a brushed aluminum finish and clear-coat top.
The Intuit Dome represents the most demanding real-world proof of under-seat air distribution at scale. Delivering conditioned air to 17,700 individual seats — simultaneously, quietly, without draft, and as part of a system supporting LEED Platinum and net-zero certification — required a product engineered to perform within tight constraints that no off-the-shelf diffuser could meet.
AirFixture's ability to customize the Élan-06R to the specific geometry, pressure, velocity, and finish requirements of this project, and to supply thousands of units to a construction manager at-risk delivery schedule, is a direct demonstration of the firm's manufacturing capability and engineering collaboration model.
The Intuit Dome is slated to host the 75th NBA All-Star Game and events for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Every fan who attends those events will be cooled by AirFixture units — without knowing it, which is exactly the point.