The new home grounds of Al Ain Football Club opened in January, after a construction schedule of just 17 months. Thornton Tomasetti provided integrated structural engineering and façade engineering design services from the concept phase through detailed design for the fast-track, design-build project.
The 25,000-seat FIFA-accredited facility is one of the most sophisticated sports arenas in the Middle East, especially in its sustainability features. The stadium has achieved 2 Pearls in the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council’s Pearl Building Rating System.
Inspired by the pattern on the bole of a date palm, the exterior façade references Al Ain’s history as home of one of the oldest date plantations in the Gulf. The stadium is clad in panels supported on a steel-framed diagrid, a system that also shades the structure and allows airflow to help cool the stadium.
To speed up the design process, the entire project team worked in parallel, using one Revit model to develop the complex geometry of the façade. We used Grasshopper to review a host of design variations, then linked the model to SAP for structural analysis and to façade analysis software for daylight assessment and reviews of thermal/solar performance. This process enabled the team to quickly identify the most structurally efficient option to meet functional shading and architectural goals.
Project Team
Manager/Operator: Al Ain Club Investment Company
Architect: Broadway Malyan Architects (master plan and interior) and Pattern Design Ltd. (stadium)
Contractor: BAM International
FKI Headquarters Opens
Courtesy Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture/photographs by Namgoong Sun
We provided structural engineering and façade engineering services for the recently opened Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) headquarters building in Seoul, South Korea. We worked closely with client Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture to develop efficient, functional and elegant solutions for the 50-story tower and its sculptural podium. Click here for more information.
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