Olympic Stadium’s canopy gets structural steelwork award

The Helsinki Olympic Stadium undergoing thorough renovation and transformation has earned the 2019 award for the structural steelwork of the year.

The award was conferred for the architectural design and structural engineering of the stadium’s canopy, said a press release of the City of Helsinki.

The steelwork enables the form and delicate appearance of the canopy.

The only steelwork of the canopy visible to spectators is the few steel columns supporting the roof, which are placed far apart.

The canopy is invisible from outside, as it remains hidden behind the Stadium exterior, with the wall cladding of the exterior made slightly higher than the earlier cladding with the help of new supporting steel structures. Inside the stadium, spectators can only see the stone-and-pine-wood strip cladding of the ceiling and light strips between cladding structures.

The canopy, which covers the Stadium’s curving bleachers, will change wind conditions inside the Stadium. As a result, bleacher structures have been tested and studied in wind tunnel and other experiments. Wind gusts, projected to be very strong at times, are offset with the shape of the canopy, which resembles the wing of an airplane, with details of the canopy’s bolt connections and by anchoring the main columns supporting the canopy to withstand upward forces. The canopy’s PVC (polyvinyl chloride) roofing covering nearly 15,500 square metres and its connections are engineered and built to withstand exceptionally demanding wind loads.