- The Sony Centre is the focus of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz development.
- Spectacular and innovative roof crowns the Sony Centre 'forum'.
The elliptical plaza of the Sony Centre 'forum' is the centrepiece of the Potsdamer Platz redevelopment project. It is crowned by a spectacular and innovative roof.
Arup provided structural and environmental engineering for the forum. The firm also provided structural engineering for three other buildings at Potsdamer Platz.
The roof of the forum is designed to extend the use of the plaza during all weather. The space created under the roof is not air-conditioned, and the city’s building department demanded special requirements for ventilation and daylighting.
Roof
It was important to the architect Helmut Jahn that a roof should cover the plaza like an umbrella. The forum was not meant to be sealed, nor should it disconnect users from an outdoor experience.
The exceptional glass membrane roof rests on a ring beam weighing 500t. The alternating application of glass and fabric on a cable structure spans 102m. Structurally, the roof resembles a bicycle wheel in a horizontal position with a hanging central 42m-long king post, creating a column-free plaza.
Prior to the detailed design of the roof, Arup conducted an environmental study that used wind tunnel tests, dynamic thermal modelling and computational fluid dynamics analysis to assess comfort levels within the Forum space.
The forum roof is unique in its design, urban context, scale and structural use of materials.
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