Project: Porto Chino

Entrant: Geometal Limited

Location: Samut Sakhon, Thailand
Client: D Land Group Co., Ltd
Completion Date: July 2012

Judges Comments:

"Contemporary structures have departed this dramatic curved shape tensiles, a nice return to Otto era."

"Seems an imaginative and successful answer to the challenge of unifying a shopping centre in need of some focus. The geometry of the main roof form adds interest to what could have been merely a pragmatic solution."

DESIGN / FABRICATION / INSTALLATION BRIEF

Our company was taking roles as design and engineer being a reason that the architect for the project came up only concept with an idea to cover void in center of life style shopping using fabric structure.

First concept was single conical, however, this was changed to one high point and one low point later to create new shape and allow wind to flow downward to space below.

Engineering works also include form-finding, structure analysis, CFD analysis, detailing design, Installation method.

STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS

The project comprises of 2 main buildings, Left and Right, leave center as void for outdoor area as promotional activities. The fabric structural system are single center mast and using building’s roof floor as support to maximize usage of fabric’s property and minimize cost of steel work. By having one higher point and one lower point at center of fabric creates double curvature to be able to take wind load for this large span as well as using as opening to allow wind flow to space underneath. Center mast is built-up section using 3 pipes and having stay cables on top to hold them in place.

Design loads are as below;

Primary load cases: Pre-stress, Dead load, Wind load in different direction.

Combination load cases: PS+DL and PS+DL+WL(in different direction).

MATERIALS

Ferrari 1202S2 was chosen as fabric due to large span and preferable choice from architect.

FABRICATION

High-frequency welding method was chosen to weld fabric at 5 cm. welding width.

Credits: