KFD Wilkinson was part of a joint venture that undertook the structural design of the 68 000-seater Cape Town Stadium to be used in the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.
A central team comprising members of each firm was tasked with designing the main stadium structure called the “bowl”. The circumference of the bowl is defined by 8 arches stitched together. The bowl is further subdivided into 72 radial gridlines approximately 10m apart. A concrete frame was placed on each radial gridline, with an approximate spacing of 8.5m between columns. The outer columns had a section of 3000mm x 800mm and raked outwards at 17 degrees to the vertical. These columns are tied to the concrete frames with raking beams. The raking beams support the precast seating.
The roof structure comprises an outer steel compression and an inner tensioned cable ring. The compression ring is joined to the tension ring with tensioned cables along each radial gridline. The roof structure was design in Stuttgart, which included wind-tunnel testing the approximate to surrounding Cape Town topographical conditions.
In addition KFD Wilkinson was specifically tasked to design:
• The double storey parking garage which wraps around the bowl structure. The top slab is a 300mm thick post tensioned slab which is designed to support a 30 ton fire engine. Immediately adjacent to the bowl structure there is a 10m wide and 500mm thick band to accommodate higher mobile crane loads during construction.
• The 10m high retaining wall along the perimeter of the bowl structure.
• The new concrete frame electrical substation structure.
• The 3.4m wide and 2.65m high underground ventilation tunnels.
• The ticket sales offices, turnstile entrance structures and stormwater relaxation chambers.
