Archinect - News

The future gets murkier for hurricane-damaged Tropicana Field

2024-12-15T08:00:00-05:00

The Tampa Bay Times is reporting on a stalled effort to repair damages caused during Hurricane Milton to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The 35-year-old stadium was initially set for a much-needed influx of $24 million worth of funding. Instead, with a last-minute reversal and given the separate uncertainty now surrounding the fate of its $1.3 billion new home, the future of the Rays franchise in the city has been cast in doubt.

Some 18 of the 24 fiberglass roof panels were lost during the storm after the 370,000 square feet of PTFE roof system failed in the face of 125+ mph winds. The cost of repairs had been previously reported at $55.7 million. This fall's hurricanes also led to a decline in construction spending for October.

Major League Baseball says damaged Tropicana Field won’t be playable until 2026

2024-11-17T08:00:00-05:00

A new roof would be the largest expense, according to the report, accounting for about $23.6 million, but the report states that “the primary structure is serviceable and capable of supporting a replacement tension membrane fabric roof.” Based on the preliminary timeline in the report, it would take a little less than 13 months from the start of construction until “final completion,” with the repairs wrapping up just before a projected Opening Day in late March of 2026.

The cost of repairs has been stated at $55.7 million. The Rays will play their home games in Tampa at George M. Steinbrenner Field (the Yankees’ Spring Training home since 1996) while repair work continues. The vexing financial fiasco is further complicated as the franchise is set to expand into new digs anyway by the start of the 2028 baseball season. Winds in excess of 125 mph removed 18 of the stadium's 24 fiberglass roof panels during Hurricane Milton back in October.

Hurricane Milton severely damages Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field Stadium

2024-10-10T17:48:00-04:00

The roof at Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, sustained major damage because of high winds associated with Hurricane Milton, which made landfall Wednesday along Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm. According to the Rays, the Trop was built to withstand winds of up to 115 mph. The roof is supported by 180 miles of cables connected by struts in what the team calls the "world's largest cable-supported domed roof."

The Populous design in St. Petersburg (formerly called the 'ThunderDome') has existed mostly without sustaining significant storm damage since 1990. The roof system was made from 370,000 square feet of PTFE (fiberglass) Tensile Membrane manufactured by a New York company called Birdair, Inc.

The incident, which was captured on social media, sadly recalls damage sustained to the Louisiana Superdome during Hurricane Katrina for many Americans.

INSIDE LOOK ▶️ The MLB released footage from inside Tropicana Field as Hurricane Milton ripped its roof off.
Wind gusts over 100 mph were recorded in the area: https://t.co/q2ktAMiTik pic.twitter.com/llKNG9XTKg
— 10 Tampa Bay (@10TampaBay) October 10, 2024

Video courtesy 10 Tampa Bay/X

The MLB franchise, which is planning a new $1.3 billion ballpark with Hines for 2028, said they must now "assess the true condition" of the building before the viability of playing the 2025 season there can be determined.

MAD designs Chinese waterfront arts center as a ‘gentle ripple by the lake’

2024-01-04T11:35:00-05:00

MAD Architects has designed a waterfront arts center in China’s Foshan City described as a “gentle ripple by the lake.” When completed in 2029, the Nanhai Art Center will cover an area of 640,000 square feet, housing a grand theater, a museum, and a sports center.

Image credit: MAD Architects

The scheme has been conceived as a “continuous wave of water,” with the three main buildings sitting underneath a floating canopy comprised of a white, translucent ETFE membrane. The resulting blurring of outdoor and indoor spaces seeks to emphasize the prominence of the nearby lake in the scheme, encouraging the local community to embrace the waterfront as a part of the scheme’s cultural function.

Image credit: MAD Architects

“The traditional culture of Nanhai is in the drum beat and boat drift during the dragon festival boat race and in the kung-fu in the lion dance,” MAD founder Ma Yansong about the site’s context. “Watching them, you can feel the dynamic vibrant, and innovative spirit from an...

As the Eden Project turns 20, its creators take a look back

2021-03-16T13:51:00-04:00

Our original designs for the biomes – hundreds of hexagonal and pentagonal cells supported by geodesic tubular steel – looked more like Waterloo, but we used ETFE foil, or ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, which was more transparent than glass but extremely lightweight. It uses 1% of the energy and carbon of glass. The difficulty was creating biomes that would interlock across a constantly shifting landscape.

The Eden Project with its famed geodesic biomes opened twenty years ago on March 17th, 2001 in Cornwall, England.

Inside the tropical biome of the Eden Project. Photo: Hchc2009/Wikimedia Commons.

World's largest single-domed tropical greenhouse, designed by Coldefy & Associates, coming soon to Northern France

2018-03-28T17:40:00-04:00

French architects Coldefy & Associates Architects Urban Planners have revealed plans for the world's largest single-domed tropical greenhouse. Called Tropicalia, this vast indoor landscape will soon pop up in the Pas-de-Calais area in Northern France and house all sorts of tropical flora and fauna under an enormous pillar-less firmament of EFTE pressurized air cushions held up by an aluminum frame.

Image: Coldefy & Associates Architects Urban Planners.

Here's a project description from the architects: "Tropicalia is a 15,000m2 tropical biodome that creates a harmonious world connecting man to an exotic natural, providing a constant temperature of 28°C in a region with notoriously poor weather. Whether it is an invitation into a dream, a grand voyage or an educational trip, Tropicalia is a place of discovery, amazement and ecological awareness."

Image: Coldefy & Associates Architects Urban Planners.

"This unique place will contain a diverse range of fauna and flora, butterflies, exotic...