Skip to main content

Research | Digital Project on 'Basrah Main Stadium Construction'

Basrah Main Stadium Construction Timeline
Basrah Main Stadium under construction. Photo courtesy of Josef Hadi / Skyscraper City

In the summer of 2010, we assisted 360 Architecture in designing the GFRP facade panels and connection brackets of the new 65,000 seat soccer stadium in Basrah. The fabrication process had to be reduced by 18 months in order to host the first match in 2013. Given that the panels measure about 100 feet, it takes about 4 months to create one mold. Hence, the number of molds required for GFRP panels had to be reduced from 10 to 5. We worked very closely with the 360 Architecture and with Bahrain based fabricator BFG to accomplish this goal.

Here’s a look at the project timeline in photos.
April 2010: We start developing panel geometry in Digital Project and use Excel to evaluate the design.

Only one panel assembly was modeled, and then instantiated using the PowerCopy feature in Digital Project.

July 2010: Brackets were designed in Digital Project and translated into TEKLA through custom script.

August 2010: BFG Panel fabricator turns our Digital Project surface geometry into a solid fabrication model. Photo courtesy of BFG International.

October 2010: Fabrication of molds for the smallest panel began in Bahrain at BFG’s plant. Photo courtesy of BFG International.

November 2010: Fabrication of molds continues. Photo courtesy of BFG International.

December 2010: Fabrication of molds continues. Photo courtesy of BFG International.

February 2011: First panel is completed. Photo courtesy of BFG International.

May 2011: All panels of this size are completed and shipped to the Basrah project site.

December 2011: The external columns and roof truss are erected. Photo courtesy of 360 Architecture.

May 2012: After one year on the site, the first panel was finally mounted. It worked!

August 2012: Almost complete! Photo courtesy of Josef Hadi / Skyscrapper City.

I would like to thank all that provided images, including my colleagues at Thornton Tomasetti, our friends at 360 Architecture and BFG International, as well as others who post construction photos in forums online.

Popular posts from this blog

Scheduling | Managing Schedule using Dynamo

Schedules on Sheets This node will query all schedules in your project and create two lists. One list will contain all schedules that are currently placed on sheet(s) and one list with schedules that have not yet been placed on sheet(s). Keep in mind that Revision Table built into a Titleblock is really a schedule and will display on the list of schedules on sheets. It might even create more than one instance of such. Schedule Appearance This node allows you to modify schedule appearance settings. Due to my limited Revit API knowledge for now you can only override Title, Header and Body Text type by feeding it an id of a Text Type that you want to use. Use, Get Text Note Type by Name from the archi-lab package to get the appropriate text style. Schedule Formatting This node will allow you to control schedule formatting. Just like in the Revit UI you can control some basic visibility settings per parameter (column) in a schedule. Parameter inputs are: Schedule – thi

Executive | Kinetic | Al-bahar Tower Open Proportion Controlling

1. Extracting 'Panel Instance Value' & 'SunSetting Instance Value', Albahar_SunScript.dyn 2. South View, 3D View, Shadow View 3. In Case of Adjusting to semi-Sphere Order of Albahar_SunScript 1. Make Family 'Albahar_Panel.rfa' 2. Start with 'Mockup-Panel.rfa' or 'Mockup-Panel_Origin' (Upload Panel family) 3. Open Dynamo API 'Albahar_SunScript.dyn' ====================================================== 4. According to the Sun Location, Panel will be changed the feature by the opening proportion  * Opening Proportion = Normalized_Curve_Parameter

SAP2000 | SAP2000-v16.1.1 & Dynamo-v0.7.5

1. SAP2000 - Bounding Box Algorithm  2. SAP2000 - Bounding Box Model 3. SAP2000 - ShellStructure - Algorithm 4. SAP2000 - ShellStructure - Model 5. SAP2000 - SpaceStructure - Algorithm 6. SAP2000 - SpaceStructure - Model 7. SAP2000 - ReadDoam + Decomposition 8. SAP2000 - ReadShell + Decomposition 9. SAP2000 - RunAnalysis-ReadResult 10. SAP2000 - Read_Edit_AddGroup  11. SAP2000 - Read_Edit_AddLoadCase Overview DynamoSAP is an open-source project and is currently available on Dynamo’s package manager . We developed the project in C# using Visual Studio, and tested it with Dynamo 0.7.5 and SAP2000 version 16. The package prescribes a few common workflows, which are outlined in the package’s sample files. The library provides a wide range of opportunities for automation of typical tasks in SAP, such as: a. Creating a structural model. The package allows users to generate structural members by using th