Sports complexes including athletics, swiming, cycling, gymnastics, tennis, basketball, hockey and other large enclosures.

These structures will often involve tensioned membrane roof panels, large span trusses, arches, cablenets or other forms of lightweight structures.

The following articles are in random order:

Structural Design of the Arch and Roof of Wembley Stadium

Kourosh Kayvani, PhD, FIEAust, CPEng
Aurecon, Sydney, Australia

ROOF DESCRIPTION

The aim of the new Wembley Stadium was to design and build a state-of-the-art national stadium, unlike any other in the world. The new stadium, with its elegant exposed steel structure arch, is an international icon as was the old stadium with its twin towers which was built in 1923.

The design brief required the roof not to cover the playing field which lead to one unique aspect of the roof in that it partially retracts over the seats to allow the daylight to reach all points of the pitch and thus a shadow-free playing field.

The retractable roof is formed by seven separate independently driven roof panels totalling 15,000 sqm that move in a parallel motion to the south as they "open" and stack on the top of one another when in a fully "open" position.

With the retracting roof panels all moving to the south, the roof design exploits the opportunity to have a tall, structurally efficient structure on the north side to support the north and south roofs. The solution was to have an elegant and structurally efficient arch which spans the entire width of the stadium's seating bowl (Figure 1).

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Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium roof in Delhi, India.

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JNS) was originally built in 1982 in honour of India's first Prime Minister. Mr. Nehru is credited as the founder of modern India through political and social reform. In preparation for the upcoming 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi this facility is receiving a dramatic update. The crowning achievement to the stadium's rebirth will be the tensile membrane roof, supported by a vast cable net. LSAA members MakMax were awarded the contract to supply and install an ambitious fabric and cable roof design, the structure is now near completion with 50 of the 88 fabric panels installed. Schlaich Bergermann & Partners are the structural engineers.

Read more: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium

Entrant: MakMax Australia - Designer
Location: Prince Alfred Park - North End Lake - Port Elizabeth South Africa
Client: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality
Architect: GMP Architects
Struct. Eng.: Schlaich Bergermann & Partners

Others: MakMax (Installation)
Builder: Grinaker / Interbeton JV
Fabricator: MakMax Australia

This project was entered in the LSAA 2009 Design Awards, Category 3 (Large Structures, #3001)

LSAA 2011 Design Awards Entry (Cat 4, Adelaide Oval Western Grandstand Redevelopment

APPLICATION OF PROJECT: Structural design of lightweight diagrid grandstand roof

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Adelaide Oval Western Grandstand Redevelopment comprises the partial demolition and reconstruction of the existing heritage listed western members grandstand into a new A$116m 14,000 seat grandstand. The iconic grandstand was opened for the 2010 Ashes Second Test Match to rave reviews. The diagrid roof forms the centrepiece of the new grandstand achieving structural spans up to 55m with arched 219CHS sections leading to an elegant and exceptionally light (55kg/m2) roof solution to provide the required cover to the grandstand patrons with unobstructed views and designed to withstand 180kph design wind speeds.

The Optus Stadium is the brand new 60,000 seat sports stadium in Perth.

Two of the LSAA member companies - Arup and MakMax - have been involved in the design and construction of the roof structure.

The Arup design team attended the cracking one day cricket game between Australia and England for the first major event at Optus Stadium. The feature of the stadium is the lightweight cantilevering roof that has a clean fabric membrane soffit and those huge speakers pack a punch. Unfortunately we lost the day only by a few runs but the atmosphere was great.

Project entered in the LSAA 2018 Design Awards (Cat 5, 5085)

APPLICATION OF PROJECT:

Façade Structure

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

To create a lightweight façade structure for Jakarta Velodrome – extending the designs and concept developed with Cox Architecture for the Queensland State Velodrome for Indonesia.

A video of the completed project may be seen at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUPJvJ4xCtA

LSAA 2018 Design Awards HIGH COMMENDATION - Category 6 Collaboration (6431)

Application: Mixed fabric PTFE and EPTFE Tensile Membrane Roof over the 60,000 seat Perth Optus Stadium.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The crowning cap of the New Perth Stadium is the “halo” roof that appears to float above the main seating bowl and façade. The use of architectural membrane materials created an ultra lightweight roof, enabling a lightweight steel frame to be constructed that compliments the minimal form of the roof.

The roof structure is a continuous fabric roof free from movement joints and integrated with lighting, PA and other systems. The translucent roof was enhanced by the use of 2 fabrics – a PTFE and an EPTFE fabric – with contrasting light transmissions creating a visually exciting texture to the Halo internally.

A link to view details (non-engineering) of the stadiums for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa:

http://www.smh.com.au/world-cup-2010/stadiums

Stadium profiles

Credits: The following article is adapted from
http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=
93:World+Cup+stadiums&catid=39:2010_bg&Itemid=59

The 2010 Fifa World Cup will be played out in 10 newly built or upgraded stadiums, in nine South African cities.

Five are existing stadiums, all of which have been upgraded, with the showpiece Soccer City in Johannesburg having undergone a major upgrade. The remaining five have been built from scratch - and completed on schedule.

The stadiums are:

Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg
Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg
Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town
Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
Durban Stadium, Durban
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth
Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg
Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein
Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit
Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane

Demolition and groundwork began in 2006, with construction of all the major facilities starting in February 2007. South Africa’s construction industry, which has substantial experience in large-scale infrastructure development, was consulted about the stadium timelines - and it was agreed that the dates were realistic.