2 June 2004
Italian Job for Buro Happold: Construction Starts on Turin’s Olympic Speed Skating Rink
Construction of the next Winter Olympic’s speed skating facility in Turin, Italy, is now under way. The venue, which features a 400m oval ice track, is the work of a design team comprising consulting engineers Buro Happold, architects HOK SVE and Studio Zoppini Associati, winners of an international competition for the project.
The new facility is to be located in the southern part of Turin in the Lingotto district, next to the former Fiat motor factory, which was used as a backdrop to the classic car chase in the 1960s Michael Caine movie, “The Italian Job”. This building has since been converted to form part of the “Lingotto Fiera” trade and exhibition centre.
Since the 1990s a major urban regeneration plan has been under way in Turin, of which the Olympic site construction forms a major part and which involves improving the city’s railway, metro and road networks and redeveloping large, derelict industrial sites.
Following the decline of its automobile manufacturing industry, the city has sought to identify new economic sectors such as telecommunications, tourism, exhibitions and trade fairs. New facilities are being built to support these emerging industries and, reflecting this, after the Olympic Games, the speed skating venue will in summer be used as a flagship exhibition centre, supplementing the three existing exhibition halls.
The design of the ice rink had to meet three key criteria: to provide a world class skating venue that will allow athletes to achieve outstanding performances and speed records; to provide a flexible dual use venue for the local community that offers skating in winter and additional exhibition space for the summer months; and to improve the local environment as an integral part of the urban redevelopment.
John Barrow, Senior Principal of HOK Sport and Mandataire for the project explained the design philosophy.
"From the outset, our aim was to satisfy the Olympic requirements for this highly technical building using an innovative structural design to create the impression of a muscular, living canopy to embrace the spectacle of the fastest human-propelled sport on earth.
Record breaking requires ever-increasing environmental controls to ensure that the ice surface is perfect. The architectural response flowed from the requirement for solar control around the building, the north façade being the exception where a sinuous glazed façade acknowledges the presence of the great Lingotto factory as its immediate neighbour.
“Without the advantage of altitude encountered at venues such as Salt Lake City and Calgary, the focus of the design has been on achieving and controlling both the ice quality and uniformity of the ice under variable lighting and spectator loads,” explained Buro Happold engineer, Steve Macey. “The principle revenue generation of the facility will be through exhibitions so the hall has additionally been designed, as far as is practical, to maintain flexibility in operation, by incorporating facilities to sub-divide the venue into three small, individual halls, each potentially staging a separate activity that in turn requires independent control and isolation from an adjoining space.”
During the months leading up to February, 2006, the flexibility of the space will be put to the ultimate test as the permanent system of embedded coils located in the exhibition floor is frozen to form the 400m ice oval. The hall’s ventilation system, designed to maintain comfortable conditions during summer exhibitions, will also be employed to dehumidify and cool the air to optimise the specific internal environmental conditions required to satisfy equally the maintenance of the ice surface, athletes’ preferences and spectator comfort.
For its use as an Olympic Games venue, high lighting levels will have to be maintained in order for TV crews to broadcast quality, slow motion replays that do not detract from the spectator experience. The lighting solution also called for careful consideration of orientation in order to minimise glare to athletes.
One of the most challenging aspects facing the design team was the arena’s soaring roof structure. Spanning over 100m and curving from east to west, it has to be capable of carrying substantial snow loads, yet have a lightweight appearance.
Having settled on long span steel trusses as the most appropriate engineering solution, the team had to establish how best to space the primary and secondary trusses, taking into account factors such as the width of the roof which, at 216m, is governed by the size of the speed skating oval and seating areas, which must accommodate an anticipated 10,000 spectators.
As the venue will be used as an exhibition space for eight months of the year, provision has been made within the roof structure to accommodate sliding cross walls and acoustic curtains enabling conversion of the auditorium into three exhibition halls.
The solution was to divide the 216m length into six 36m-wide bays, with six primary trusses. The efficient 72m-wide structural system devised by the engineers comprises two primary trusses, a central 36m spanning truss, and two 18m spanning cantilevering trusses on each side.
To facilitate both winter and summer use, the design team also had to consider the issue of thermal expansion, which is likely to be substantial, given the wide range of temperatures the structure will be subject to. Rather than ‘lock in’ stresses by restricting the movements of the roof, the engineers were able to preserve its lightweight aesthetic by providing movement joints and allowing the roof to sway (within serviceability limits) about its support points.
The position of the movement joints in the plane of the roof coincides with the potential future subdivision of the hall, and by raising the tips of the cantilevering trusses to a constant height the engineers have allowed for the future introduction of a rectilinear acoustic barrier between the exhibition spaces. This solution has also helped to create a more interesting roof form.
Construction of the new facility is expected to be complete during 2005 in readiness for the Winter Olympic Games in 2006.
Background information for editors:
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
Elspeth Wales
Telephone 01225 320 600
Fax 0870 787 4148
Email:Elspeth.Wales@burohappold.com Elspeth.Wales@burohappold.com
HOK Sport + Venue + Event is the world's largest sports architecture practice based in London, Kansas City and Brisbane. The group has designed over 840 sports projects and is responsible for many of the world's best-known stadia. These include the new Wembley Stadium, Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Telstra Stadium (for the Sydney Olympics); and the Benfica Stadium, Lisbon; and Faro Stadium, Algarve (major venues for Euro 2004).
STUDIO ZOPPINI ASSOCIATI
Strada Anulare Torre 10
S.Felice - Segrate (MI)
Tel. ++39 027530009
Fax ++39 027533027
E-mail::studio@studiozoppini.fastwebnet.it">studio@studiozoppini.fastwebnet.it
Web: http://www.studiozoppini.it
