BOK Center

Overview

The 19,199-seat BOK Center is the anchor of Tulsa’s Vision 2025, the city’s comprehensive downtown revitalization effort. The elliptically shaped, 565,000-square-foot, multipurpose facility is home to the ECHL's Tulsa Oilers and accommodates concerts, arena football, basketball and community events. The arena's architectural focus is the Icon Wall, the 75-foot-tall exterior glass wall that extends more than 500 feet across the south façade and is supported at the east end by a soaring 80-foot by 80-foot entry canopy, which appears to float above the main entry without support.

We provided structural design services to Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects & Matrix*Odell, LLC, for the arena, which opened in 2008.

Highlights

• The arena’s irregular shape and geometry is formed by a series of tapering conical shapes molded together.
• The roof of the arena is framed by a pair of box trusses, clear spanning 330 feet across the seating bowl. Box trusses and perimeter beams support a system of more shallow shop assembled trusses and purlins.
• The use of box trusses and perimeter beams allowed for maximum shop pre-assembly, minimized erection schedule and improved site logistics. This approach reduced the project schedule and budget constraints, permitting extra focus and time for the design of the exterior walls.
• Design and construction of the Icon Wall required early accommodation of constructability into the analysis and design in order to achieve compatibility between the cantilever supporting the wide tributary roof area and glazing assembly.
• We designed a system of tie-downs to pre-deflect the girder equal to the deflections from the weight of the roof framing, pipe trusses and glazing. By pre-loading the cantilever, glazing joints were kept at a minimum to accommodate deflections from live loads.