Stadium build thread

[HornedMessiah]

Is the glass roof slanted enough so that snow always falls off? I doubt it. I wonder if they're going to install some kind of heating element to melt it, otherwise it would be pretty dumb to have a glass ceiling that's covered in snow.

[J. Kapp 11]

Gotta be honest. I love it, for several reasons.

1) It doesn't look like anybody else's stadium.
2) It lets a lot of the outdoors in.
3) I like modern architecture. To each his own.
4) Being enclosed, it should continue to be nice and loud.
5) It keeps the Vikings in Minnesota.

For those of you who say it's small, the footprint is actually much larger than the Metrodome, and it's nearly twice as tall. How big does it need to be?

Also, while it seats "only" 65,000, I feel like that's a good size that can be sold out consistently, but still large enough to be able to get tickets fairly reasonably (or as reasonable as Stub Hub gets). It can expand to beyond the minimum 72,000 for a Super Bowl, so that's good. It's got the big HD scoreboards that everybody wants now (and they're in the end zone, so AP can watch himself run for 80-yard TDs). I don't see a lot of drawbacks to it.

My only concern is all the glass. It looks great, especially from inside, but I just wonder about greenhouse effect -- not only heat, but humidity. Surely the architects have taken this into consideration, right?

[dead_poet]

You came at me from all sides Tuesday with questions on the Minnesota Vikings' stadium design. I had a few answers but jotted down most of your thoughts for further pursuit. Let's use this post as a jumping-off point for what I consider the most relevant and pressing issues.

Pivot doors: The design calls for five glass pivot doors on the west side of the stadium, and many of you want to know how they will work. Here's what I can tell you: Each of the five doors is 95 feet tall on a stadium that is 205-270 feet tall at various points. There will also be louvers on the east side of the stadium to help air circulation, but from what I understand, the west side of the stadium isn't really a window in the way we discussed before the unveiling. The area above the doors is transparent but fixed. Regardless, fresh air can still enter the building. The team has wind tests scheduled to help establish a protocol for leaving the doors open.

Shadows: The Vikings bill the stadium as having the largest transparent roof in the world, so many of you are asking about shadows that would presumably be cast down to the playing field from the support structure. In a news conference Monday night, stadium designer Bryan Trubey of HKS said there should be "no shadow line from hard structure" and that the stadium will be "a completely open and totally illuminated building." According to Trubey, the roof structure is relatively light, allowing for smaller and less frequent structural pieces to support it. From the team's release: The stadium will have the "lightest and most efficient roof structure in the nation for a major new stadium, which will include a single large steel super truss providing primary support for the main long span roof."

Noise: How will the clear ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) roof perform acoustically? Will it amplify crowd noise? Absorb it? And how will it impact the public address system, a big complaint of fans in the Metrodome? According to Trubey, the roof surface is "a moderate kind of acoustic material" and is "not very reflective." It's possible we won't know the crowd noise answer until the stadium opens.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_ ... s-and-more

[Eli]

Is the glass roof slanted enough so that snow always falls off? I doubt it. I wonder if they're going to install some kind of heating element to melt it, otherwise it would be pretty dumb to have a glass ceiling that's covered in snow.

That's an interesting question. Snow and ice falling off the roof is a huge safety and liability concern. The roof appears to be quite steep, so I'm betting that it would indeed shed snow, but that they can't afford to let it happen. There will have to be heating elements and other precautions taken to keep anything from falling.

In fact, HKS has a pretty dismal track record of properly designing both Cowboys and Lucas Oil stadiums to deal with this. One would certainly hope that they're aware of the issue by now.

* Cowbows Stadium

* Lucas Oil Stadium

[dead_poet]

FWIW (not much):

Not including rookies, the only #Vikings under contract for when new stadium opens in 2016 are AP, Jennings, Loadholt, Sullivan and Carlson.

Tom Pelissero on Twitter

[PurpleMustReign]

My only concern is all the glass. It looks great, especially from inside, but I just wonder about greenhouse effect

Not to mention the hailstorms...

[Demi]

You don't like it?

Wow. I'm shocked.

Actually, after the knee jerk reaction I've come around on it a little. The inside and face of it look alright. The aerial and some side views look like ####. But I doubt I'll be in the Goodyear blimp any time soon.

Oh and that glass wont break.

I wonder if when someone asked if the Metrodome roof might collapse, some guy on some forum said the same thing about that when it was about to be built.

There do seem to be a large number of possible issues, and you can see shadows in the photos they already have, is there sorcery involved in case the sun moves to keep the shadows from moving with it? Not that they mind as you can see from previous stadiums. If they open those doors would be interesting to see the affect overall from the wind.

In a few years we'll see just how much trouble they have with it, definitely cutting edge, but too cutting edge? hmmm!

[Tark10]

Don't be so critical. This team could be in Los Angeles. A new stadium and a potential Super Bowl date should happen. This palace is a far cry from the old Met. I never liked the Metrodome. it has no character at all. Hey Mothman!! Some of us 40-plus year fans are grateful. Could be the Browns turned Ravens, could be L.A. Rams now St. Lo. Rams., could be the Houston Oilers turned Tennessee Titans.. This is all good news and should be treated as such. Or so I would think..

[Raptorman]

Is the glass roof slanted enough so that snow always falls off? I doubt it. I wonder if they're going to install some kind of heating element to melt it, otherwise it would be pretty dumb to have a glass ceiling that's covered in snow.

It's not a glass roof. It is the same stuff they used in the 2008 Olympics for the Swimming venure. Only it's clear instead of blue.

About half the roof will have a hard covering or deck, with the remainder made up of ETFE, a transparent glass-like polymer that was used to cover the outside of the Beijing National Aquatics Center, also known as the “Water Cube,” site of the 2008 Olympic swimming competition.

http://www.startribune.com/local/minnea ... page=2&c=y



http://www.designbuild-network.com/cont ... ures5.html

[PurpleHalo]

Yeah, but I'm sure that design was rejected early on. Doesn't look like there's seating for more than forty or fifty people in there.

Maybe it's a magical stadium, looks small, but open the door and oh wow 70k screaming fans!

[Reignman]

Well that was pretty much my only concern about the new stadium. That and I didn't want to see them add one of those gawd awful retractable roofs. Anything was better than seeing them move to LA though, so I'm not going to complain.

Wilf seemed obsessed with building a stadium similar to Lucas Oil, and after watching our game at Indy last September I was concerned we'd end up with a similar shadow problem. That game was really hard on the eyes, so I hope Trubey is right.

However, I too am wondering what it's going to be like if we get one of those major Minnesota snow storms. That roof doesn't look like it would be easy to replace or repair if it collapses. But I imagine it's going to have one hell of a snow melting system. With how much the roof slopes, I would hate to have to be the one that has to go up there with a shovel haha.

[MV711]

I have worked in the architectural arena for many years and have seen the many advances made with various materials such as glass, plastic, metals and composites to mention a few.

For those who have concerns about the glass panels that will probably be used, I opine that the types of specialty glasses available today are designed and produced to yield the very highest strength to weight ratio along with thermal and insulative properties that are outstanding. Many also are designed to both reflect and absorb heat depending on design and choice of raw materials.

Many of the state of the art glasses are laminated with high strength Polycarbonate which is one of the stongest and toughest plastics made. These specialty glasses can withstand temperatures down to -60F with very high loadings. These panels are designed to be extremely rigid(to withold 500-1000+ lbs per sq. ft), have low co-efficients of expansion, have exceptinally high impact strengths while having thermal characteristics that will keep the interior cool on very hot days and warm on very cold ones.

The design of the stadium appears to take into consideration the various angles that the panels will be placed which also affects the overall performance of the panels in synergy with other materials which may be used.

The futuristic and state of the art design is very impressive and IMO, Viking fans will be very pleased with it. I would have loved to been involved in the design and building of such a great building!!

Another thing I'd like to add is that if the clear panels are not glass, varoius plastics that may be used also have very good properties quite similar to the composite glass panels I mentioned earlier. They may not be quite as rigid as the composite glass so it's a compromise between cost and performance. The advances in composite glass panels has been mind boggleing over the last 5 years and I would think from a performance and installation/replacement standpoint, the composite glass panels would be the way to go.

[viking_guy]

it is a very interesting design. I am dissapointed it is not open air though. I can't wait for the Super Bowl to be here in a few years!!!

[PurpleKoolaid]

it is a very interesting design. I am dissapointed it is not open air though. I can't wait for the Super Bowl to be here in a few years!!!

I didn't think it was large enough to host a SB game?

[DavidKarki]

I didn't think it was large enough to host a SB game?

It expands to 73,000 for Super Bowl purposes. Standard capacity is 65,000. I'm not sure if they'll have the same thing as Jerry's Dallas Palace, where each row of seats slide onto a bar and you simply add or remove seats by sliding them on or off the bar to adjust the capacity.