The main venue of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese National Stadium nicknamed ‘Bird’s Nest’ is an impressive sight and a tour de force of modern construction practices. Its construction was made possible with the help of Tekla Structures software, which was used to design and detail the most challenging parts of the stadium roof's steel structure. The complicated frame has been designed to last for at least the next 100 years. In addition, Tekla Structures was used to model three other impressive buildings in Beijing: the TV Center and CCTV buildings and the new International Conference Center.
The stadium, set to host the Olympics’ opening ceremonies on August 8, has already become a symbol of pride for the people of China. Dubbed the Bird’s Nest due to the appearance of its exterior, it will serve as the main Olympic venue this summer. It will be the stage for the track and field competition and also host the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies. The television audience should pay special attention to the irregular and complicated steel structures of the stadium's roof and façade, which were designed and detailed using the Tekla Structures BIM (Building Information Modeling) software.
In the design stage, 3D views of the stadium roof’s beams and joints were created with the help of Tekla Structures. The stadium façade’s interwoven structural elements form a single surface, on top of which other elements are arranged in an almost chaotic manner, blurring the difference between the primary and secondary structures and giving the stadium its nest-like appearance. To reduce construction costs, the designers enlarged the opening in the saddle-shaped roof, a change which decreased the total weight of steel used from 45,000 tons to 42,000 tons. Altogether, modeling and detailing the most complicated parts of the steel roof took one year.
As a whole, the stadium is an impressive display of modeling and building practices. The Bird’s Nest is designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, and its frame to last 100 years. The architecture and structural design were the responsibility of the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron (recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize), the China Architecture and Design Research Institute, and the British firm Arup. The Chinese steel companies Haorong, Huning and Jinggong carried out the modeling and detailing of the steel roof using Tekla Structures software.
Tekla Structures in Beijing
Tekla Structures software has been involved in the development of many of the building projects for the new Beijing infrastructure. This is because of its ability to handle very complex geometry, which has been a key requirement for all these projects. “The ability to model very complex connections is also a key requirement,” says Senior Consultant Michael Evans of Tekla. “To be able to work simultaneously in one model is essential for the success of such large and complex projects, and to keep the size of the database very small to be able to efficiently handle and share the building information is equally important,” he explains.
The headquarters of the China Central television station, the CCTV Towers, is Beijing’s newest landmark. Its tower geometry was a challenge to the builders. The 3-dimensional cranked loop, formed from two L-shaped towers, was modeled using Tekla Structures. The taller tower rises 230 meters above the Beijing skyline and contains 405,000 square meters of floor area. Tekla Structures was particularly used in the challenging task of linking the towers, as well as during the construction phase. Because of the complex shape of the building it was impossible to imagine in the designers mind how the connection worked. Using Tekla Structures they were able to ‘visualize’ how the connection would work. The connections modeled in Tekla Structure can then be exported into the design software to analyze. 
The Beijing TV Center was designed by Beijing Architecture Design and Research Institute and detailed by SHTK (Shanghai Tongqing Technology Developing Co. Ltd.) using Tekla Structures. The detailing phase took 12 months. Tekla’s multi-user capability plays an important role in this project; there were 4 detailers working simultaneously in the model. The Tekla model was of great benefit for the steel fabricator Huning (Jiangsu Hu Ning Gang Ji Steel Co. Ltd.) to fabricate the exact right parts for the building. 38,000 tons of steel were used for the project.
The Beijing International Conference Center is another design of the Beijing Architecture Design and Research Institute. It was detailed and fabricated by Beijing Sanjie International Steel Co. Ltd. with Shanghai Qianming Steel Consultation Co. in two months. Because the whole structure is curved, every connection on the roof angle is different and needs to be detailed separately and accurately. Automatic creation of drawings in Tekla Structures, including simple part details and 3D views, is a great aid to construction.
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