One of the most recognised landmarks in the UK, and the largest of its kind in the world, the Millennium Dome was built to house a series of exhibition spaces and core buildings.
This was a multi-disciplinary project incorporating each service offered by Buro Happold at the time and involving every UK Buro Happold office.
The roof of the Dome is a huge cable net, 320m in diameter and clad in 80,000m2 of tensioned PTFE coated glass fibre fabric. It is an innovative feat of engineering yet simple in concept. Twelve 100m high steel masts extend from the roof to support a tensioned net of steel cables, arranged radially on the surface of the Dome and held in place by hangar and tie-down cables at 25m intervals. An inner layer of covering reduces thermal gain and improves thermal and acoustic performance.
Our building services engineers ingeniously opted to house primary electrical and mechanical plant in 12 steel cylinders that surround the dome, in keeping with the architect's aesthetic desires.
