American Airlines Arena
The 20,000-seat AmericanAirlines Arena, home to the NBA Miami Heat and WNBA Miami SOL, is positioned on an 8.4-acre site on the serene and majestic Biscayne Bay. The arena, designed to accommodate basketball, hockey, and concerts includes amenities such as a 2.6-acre plaza, public terraces and balconies, private suites, a bar and lounge, restaurants, underground parking for 1,071 and a multi-purpose practice court.
One of the arena’s most unusual features is the installation of an ALIX retractable seating system at the event level to allow both uncomplicated and rapid conversion among seating arrangements. The event level is a structurally framed floor system above the parking level and has an ice rink constructed on a structural flat slab. The parking level constructed 15 feet below the 100-year flood elevation is a slab-on-grade construction with holes to relieve water pressure in the instance of flooding. An efficient tension-tied roof design resists uplift forces as high as 150 psf. The roof has large cantilevers on two sides and concrete framed sail structures on the opposite two sides.
Project Stats
Location: Miami, Florida
Owner: Dade County, Florida
Architect: 360 Architecture Inc. & Arquitectonica
Area: 700,000 sf
Completion Date: 1999
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