Retractable Roof Structures

Over the last decade many large scale stadia have been developed and built across the world. This trend is set to continue as sporting events and tournaments such as the Olympics require the provision of modern venues. There is therefore a need for continuously developing and improving the design for these large venues. Many modern venues require the spaces to be multi-purpose to increase revenue and a popular method of achieving this is by adopting a retractable roof structure.

Figure1: Oita Stadium by Kisho Kurokawa architect & associates

This website presents some new solutions for the design of novel retractable roof structures. The focus of the research is to develop new mechanisms that consists solely of rigid elements and simple joints while having an overall geometry that allows it to be applied to large span retractable roofs for stadia.

Publications

Jensen, F. and Pellegrino, S. (2002)
Expandable Structures formed by Hinged Plates
In Proc. Fifth International Conference on Space Structures,
19-21 August 2002, Guildford, Surrey (Edited by G. A. R. Parke
and P. Disney), Thomas Telford Limited. (in pdf)

Jensen, F.V. (2001)
Cover Elements for Retractable Roof Structures
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge
First-year report submitted to the University of Cambridge
on the progress of Ph.D.-work. (in pdf)