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The National Stadium and the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
located more than half of the stadium seats within the lower tier
bowl, with 30,000 seats located in retractable seating modules
that can be moved 12.5 m closer to the football pitch.
Using its in-house parametric bowl generation software to
complete these optimisation studies, Arup was able to arrive at
a 3D form for the bowl and at the same time study the impact
of reducing the geometry of the stadium roof. The final design
for the bowl made it possible to reduce the long span of the
dome, currently being constructed by Dragages Singapore on
site, to 310 m.
Parametric design: roof architecture and structure
The architectural design and engineering of the stadium roof
would not have been possible without the use of the latest
3D modelling software. The Arup design team realised that
the successful delivery of the roof structure needed a fully
integrated approach to the architectural and structural design.
To this end, a specialist team within the firm was tasked with
developing bespoke software to manage inputs from the various
design software used in the design process. An iterative process
was required as inputs from different software took the roof
through a range of design processes, from geometry generation
to structural analysis.
The different members of the Arup design team wanted a
feedback loop, so that one software could inform another of
defined positions, co-ordinates and dimensions for the roof
elements. And so from the outset, a common interface was
established, to allow the parametric intelligence established in
Digital Project, Rhinoceros or Oasys GSA to be transferred
from one software to another. Through this integrated design
approach, a set of shared parameters was established, that would
govern the roof structure and influence the visible architecture.
The initial target was to reduce steel weight by leveraging the
inherent efficiencies of the shell roof form. One of the outcomes
of this was the reduction in the depth of the primary structure
as it came to ground. Two control surfaces were established to
The interiors of corporate suites.
Parametric model of the stadium roof. Image by Arup.
44 THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER October 2012