Architectural Record – August 2019

(^38) ARCHITECTURAL RECORD AUGUST 2019 IN FOCUS
1 CHAMPIONSHALL
2 SPONSORSSUITES
3 RESTAURANT
4 TERRACE
5 CHAMPAGNEBAR
6 WEIGHINGROOM
If you caught some of the Wimbledon tournament last month, you
may have noticed a new retractable roof over Court 1. That roof, along
with other improvements to the stadium just beside Centre Court, was
designed by Grimshaw, which has also developed a master plan for the
All England Lawn Tennis Club. The global firm, known mainly for
highly complex transportation facilities and innovative science and
educational buildings, is beginning to flex its muscle when it comes to
athletics. In County Kildare, Ireland, Grimshaw has just completed
another sporting venue—with another impressive roof.
Officially opened at the end of May, the reimagined Curragh
Racecourse, which includes a dramatic grandstand, was designed to
“grow from the landscape,” according to Kirsten Lees, managing part­
ner of Grimshaw’s London office. (The firm has recently seen a change
in leadership, with Andrew Whalley succeeding founder Sir Nicholas
Grimshaw as chair earlier this summer.)
Set amid gently rolling natural grasslands with the Wicklow
Mountains in the distance, the historic Curragh has long been one of
Ireland’s most important Thoroughbred racecourses. Working with
Dublin­based architects Newenham Mulligan & Associates, Grimshaw
reorganized the previously linear grounds by relocating the entrance to
bring visitors directly to the heart of the action. A new parade ring,
where the horses meet their jockeys before a race, now has views to
Curragh’s famous track. Dismal low spaces in the former grandstand,
which was well beyond its serviceable life—“the facilities didn’t match
the track,” says Lees—have been replaced with a welcoming double­
height atrium at the angled rear of the new grandstand. “It’s about the
spectacle,” Lees asserts. “Everyone’s dressed up in their finery.”
But it is the grandstand’s soaring roof that is the star of the show.
Topping a precast­concrete superstructure that is exposed throughout
much of the public space of the building, and covering an area of
77,500 square feet, the underside of the shapely, surprisingly thick roof
surges to a razorlike edge, creating a gravity­defying illusion. “You read
it not as a volume but as a planar surface,” says Rossella Nicolin, associ­
ate director at AECOM Sports, which provided the structural and m/e/p
engineering.
A series of steel Pratt trusses composed of standard open sections
form the sweeping roof, which is 12½ feet at its deepest, where me­
chanical equipment is housed. Though relatively simple, the shape and
layout of the trusses were developed through parametric scripting
tools. This allowed many structural options to be rapidly assessed and
optimized. For instance, adopting shallow steel trusses would have
yielded a very heavy and uneconomical structure. Thanks to tapered
plate girders along the edge, the roof thins to just under 6 inches as it
cantilevers over the plein air seating beneath it. At the center, the span
is 88½ feet, but at one corner, at the western end, a double cantilever
PHOTOGRAPHY:
©
ROGER
O'SULLIVAN
0 30 FT.
SECTION A - A 10 M.
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