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Free Content Design of a 500,000m2 Iconic Roof for the New International Airport for Mexico City

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Authors: Kostura, Zak 1 ; Clark, Matthew C.J 2 ; Olson, James R 3 ; 

Source: Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia, IASS 2018 Boston Symposium: Structural innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration, pp. 1-8(8)

Publisher: International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS)

The roof of the New International Airport for Mexico City is a lightweight steel shell structure and an architectural centerpiece of the new 4,432 hectare greenfield airport development. Visually exposed and structurally independent from the building beneath, it supports a 500,000m2 envelope that reaches a peak height of 45m above ground level and maximum span-to-depth ratio of nearly 60:1. While it is comprised of several subassemblies, including a 2-layer tetrahedral ball-node space frame and single-layer welded CHS shells, the roof was designed and detailed with the overt intent of achieving seamless visual continuity across the entire system. It is a mile long, nearly half a mile wide and is achieved with no movement joints. This paper outlines the team’s approach to form-finding and design of the system’s sub-assemblies. It provides an overview of the most significant structural hazards and the analytical methods employed to optimize the system for steel tonnage.

Fig. 1. Rendering of the NAICM terminal building roof (F+P/FR-EE)

Keywords: earthquake design; form finding; metal spatial structures; optimization; parametric design

Document Type: Research Article

Affiliations: 1: Arup New York, NY, USA, Email: [email protected] 2: Arup, New York, NY, USA, Email: [email protected] 3: Arup, New York, NY, USA, Email: [email protected]

Publication date: 16 July 2018

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  • The Proceedings of IASS Annual Symposia include the articles presented at each symposium. They are grouped by thematic sessions. These limited-length conference papers are reviewed and selected by the Scientific or Technical Committee of each symposium, and generally only those actually presented orally at the conference are included. Although the metadata for the papers is available to the public, only members of the IASS can view the full papers, for which the author(s) hold the copyright. Further information about the projects or research should be sought from the author(s).
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