Proceedings of the IASS Symposium 2018

Creativity in Structural Design

July 16-20, 2018, MIT, Boston, USA
Caitlin Mueller, Sigrid Adriaenssens (eds.)

The dome of the Sports Palace of Mexico City, simulation of the

structure by the parametrization of the components of different
proposals.
Edwin González*, Giancarlo Di Marcoa

* Universidad de las Americas Puebla

Ex Hacienda Santa Catarina Martir s/n, San Andres Cholula, Puebla.
edwin.gonzalez@udlap.mx
a
Centro de Diseño, Cine y Televisión
Av. Constituyentes 455, 11820 Col. América, CDMX.
gdimarco@centro.edu.mx

Abstract.
The Sports Palace in Mexico City is a turning point in the design and construction of laminar shells,
determining the transition from reinforced concrete to metallic grid structures. Félix Candela had
observed that the use of concrete in the design of laminar structures was a limit for achieving great spans
for sports spaces, so together with the architects Antonio Peyrí and Enrique Castañeda he designed a
dome by building a three-directional grid of 5-meters-high arches. However, in the original architectural
conception, a lighter tensegrity structure was proposed, with the idea to use high-strength cables in the
upper and lower beams with a section height of only 2.5 meters.
In this article, two different proposals will be analyzed using advanced NURBS modeling techniques
with Rhinoceros and parametric design with Grasshopper. Tessellation and paneling plugins, forces
simulation and finite elements analysis tools together with form-finding techniques will be used to
generate different grids and to compare the results under normal design conditions.
Keywords: Sports Palace, Félix Candela, parametric design, optimization, metallic structures, light structures, tensegrity.

1. Introduction.
Mexico was designated as the host for the XIX Olympic Games in 1963. Under request of the Mexican
President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Mexico had to show off a technological and modern vocation with
architecture being the spearhead, guided by the Secretaria de Obras Públicas [SOP] of the Distrito
Federal and the Organizing Committee led by Arq. Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. The SOP and Arq. Ramírez
Vázquez recommended reviewing the previous works of Nervi and Tange in the Olympic Games that
preceded them: these works were taken as examples of functionality and over the years they had already
become iconic buildings.
With these recommendations in mind, the SOP and the Organizing Committee of the XIX Olympiads
held a series of competitions for the construction of the facilities that were necessary for the realization
of the games, including the Sports Palace. This building would become the icon of the games. The
winning project was presented by the Corpore Sano team: architects Félix Candela Outeriño, Enrique
Castañeda Tamborel and Antonio Peyrí Macia.
Once the design process had reached the final geometric solution and various proposals had already been
made for the main structure of the dome, the team used several methodologies to study and guarantee
the security, the main concerns being external forces such as earthquakes and wind: computers for
calculations; wind tunnel to analyze and understand the behavior of the structure (resisting to a

Copyright © 2018 by Edwin GONZALEZ, Giancarlo DI MARCO.

Published by the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) with permission.
 Proceedings of the IASS Symposium 2018
Creativity in Structural Design

maximum wind speed of up to 200km/h) [1]; large scale models to validate the proposed steel main
structure subject to vertical loads.

Figure 1: Sports Palace [2]

With the current digital technologies this work would have been easier and shorter. In this article we
build a digital parametric model of the first structural proposal consisting of prestressed cables and steel
elements. Then in his paper it is simulated the behavior of the model using parametric structural
engineering tools that provide an accurate analysis of the behavior of shells, space structures, trusses
and frames (Karamba) and a physics engine for interactive simulation, form-finding, optimization and
constrain solving (Kangaroo Physics). Finally, it is created a digital parametric tensegrity model
according to Félix Candela’s first structural proposal and verify its behavior and stability.

2. Geometry and metallic structure.

In the dome of the Sports Palace in Mexico City, Candela used a complex geometry together with an
innovative structural proposal to solve a long-span roof structure. According to classifications by
different authors, it can be described as a horizontal type of structure (2D truss grid), projected over a
rotational surface to form a 3D truss grid dome. The result was a spherical grid as a solution for the grid
of the metallic frameworks [3].

2.1. First project proposal by Félix Candela.

The first project proposals that were designed for the Sports Palace of Mexico City were given by the
SOP to five experienced architects who had already designed important buildings in the past with
structural solutions related to this type of architecture. These architects were Enrique Carral, Félix
Candela, Enrique de la Mora and the team formed by Juan Sordo Madaleno and Jose Adolfo Wiechers
[4].
The proposal of Félix Candela had an approximate capacity of 15,000 spectators and was the smallest
of the 5 preliminary projects. The geometric solution of the project was an anticlastic roof of reinforced
concrete: this particular geometry is typical of Candela’s taste for mathematical surfaces with particular
curvature conditions [5]. The preliminary project contemplated a circular plant of approximately 130
meters in diameter and buttresses with a maximum height of 35 meters [4].

Figure 2: First proposal by Félix Candela [4]

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With a tensed saddle surface as roof, the building was higher along one direction and lower in the
perpendicular direction. This naturally led to: increase the thickness of the roof; increase the global
height of the building in order to have enough room for the bleachers; increase the amount, the section
and the height of the buttresses. Thereby the number of spectators was reduced too.

2.2. The main structure of the Sports Palace.

“When changes in the architectural program were realized and the capacity of the Sports Palace
increased, the first proposal raised restricted the solution of the scale, because the anticlastic solution
working in tension limited the free space within the maximum distance of the supports forcing to be
taller, which would increase the section and height of the supports and thereby reduce the capacity of
spectators. As a consequence, it was completely ruled out when the size of the project was increased, as
a structural solution based on concrete would not be possible because of the structure’s weight and the
resulting cost of construction” [3].
The first proposal was completely discarded when the design requirements changed to a minimum of
20,000 spectators: a concrete structure would not be possible because of its weight, cost and construction
time. Therefore, Candela changed the proposal completely, designing a lighter metallic structure for the
roof.
In the built project, the main structure of the dome consists of 22 arc-shaped steel trusses framework
forming an orthogonal grid with a constant thickness of 5m. The base grid of this structure is made of
principal curvature circles of a sphere. The final radius ranges between 95.10m and 92.60m
corresponding to the axis of the framework [3]. The boundary of the structure is defined by four inclined
planes passing through the orthogonal diameters of the sphere and forming a dihedral angle of 45°28’
with the vertical plane [6].
The arc-shaped frameworks shape the main structure. Metallic profiles and metal plates with different
thicknesses form special sections and nodes, thus solving the structural work of each of the elements.
The top and bottom chords of the frameworks are built with metallic tubes with a diameter of 20cm,
grade 30, “working under traction enabling to withstand flexural moments caused by the wind and
asymmetrical loads caused by hail, sinking, etc.” [7]. The diagonals of the main structure have H sections
of 30x30cm, with plates of 5/8" and a core of 1/2" of thickness, absorbing the whole compression stresses
on the arches. The uprights of the frameworks are made of three plates of 30x15cm, two plates of a
thickness of 3/4" and a core of 1/2", subjected to compression [8].

2.3. First structural proposal to solve the geometry of the Sports Palace.
Originally the top and bottom chords were designed with prestressed high strength cables able to
withstand stresses only, in order to increase the rigidity of the arch while increasing the capacity of the
same to have the presence of pre-stress forces. The cables would not work when symmetrical vertical
loads act exclusively above the roof. Any local or general flexion would cause one of the cables (the
superior or inferior, depending on the sign of the moment) to work at tension thus providing the
necessary resistant torque along with the diagonal. However, under these conditions the height of the
effective section of the arches would only be 2.50m at the points of intersection of the diagonals and
their moment of inertia very low, since the area of the cable would be the tie. This was unsuitable
according to design requirements, and above all, the solution would not avoid a possible buckling of the
whole structure [7][8][9].
Due to the cost of the protection against corrosion, and the difficulties of assembling the cables, and
since the cables would not have provided sufficient rigidity to the arc sections, the proposal was finally
rejected [8].

3. Simulations and tests for the dome of the Sports Palace.

Because of the innovative nature of the geometry proposed by Félix Candela, it was difficult to define
the exact behavior of the structure subject to forces such as earthquakes or wind. Therefore, the architect
used handcrafted scale models putting them in a wind tunnel to understand the behavior against the
wind; also, technological tools such as computers were used to perform calculations.

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3.1. Computer based structural analysis of the Sports Palace.

At the time of the construction of the final project, the structural calculations to be performed were so
many and so complicated that their manual execution was practically impossible. The use of computers
allowed to obtain detailed structural analysis and therefore an accurate geometrical definition of the roof,
as well as the structural analysis of the base ring that receives the kicks of the arches [10]. It’s important
to mention that the first use of computers in architectural design dated back to only 10 years.
The programs used for the calculations were encoded in FORTRAN using an IBM-709 computer; the
geometry of the arches as well as the hyperbolic paraboloids with their cartesian coordinates among
other data were calculated using an IBM-1620 computer from the Centro Nacional de Cálculo of the
Instituto Politécnico Nacional [IPN]. Finally, a special program was developed to determine the detailed
geometry of the hyperbolic paraboloids with lengths and angles among other data and the program run
on an IBM-360 computer from the SOP [10].

3.2. Study of the effect of the wind on the dome.

Due to the complexity of the geometry of the roof it was difficult to determine the effect of wind on the
structure. The Instituto de Ingeniería of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico [UNAM]
proposed the solution based on a model tested in a wind tunnel, determining pressures on the cover in
transverse and diagonal directions of the wind at speeds between 150 and 200km/hr., making it possible
to predict the effects of the wind with greater safety [1].

3.3. Prototypes of structural models to determine the distribution of the stresses.

This exercise was requested by the SOP to be able to determine in an experimental way the distribution
of the stresses on the roof of the Sports Palace. The first test was performed on an isolated arch to obtain
the preliminary results that could be used later in further tests. Subsequently, a complete model of the
main structure of the dome was built at a scale of 1:15. By subjecting the model to the actions of vertical
loads and wind and to dilatations due to temperature variations, it was possible to detect and measure
the displacements and deformations [11].

Figure 3: Test of the arch [11]

4. Simulation of the built structure of the dome of the Sports Palace using parametric
tools.
Rhinoceros, Grasshopper and other free softwares were used for the drawing and simulations of the
existing (built) structure of the Sports Palace and its tensegrity representation. The arches were drawn
in Rhinoceros as portions of the principal curvature circles of a sphere at the given points [5] (nodes of
the structure). The arches were then imported in Grasshopper to create parametric representation of the

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upper and lower chords as well as the diagonals of the truss structure. In this step the actual 5m height
of the beams was kept.

Figure 4: Main structure grid in Rhinoceros

Support points for the trusses were also added in Grasshopper using Pufferfish plugin. Using standard
Grasshopper data manipulation techniques, all the beams of the steel structures were modeled as
individual lines to allow later structural simulations and analysis. In this phase, the beams connecting
the arches to the support points were added: these beams, together with the trusses, form the principal
steel structure.

Figure 5: Drawing of the main structure

In the third stage, the simulation of the structural behavior of the principal structure of the Sports Palace
was carried out using the educational license of Karamba 3D, a structural analysis plugin for
Grasshopper. The supports or points of union with the buttresses are simulated as fixed end support,
while gravitational loads are applied to the entire structure. A specific cross section was defined for each
of the linear elements of the trusses. Structural steel type A-36 was used. The lower and upper elements
of the arches use a circular cross section while diagonals and uprights use custom H and I cross sections.

Figure 6: Axial stresses

In the simulation of the main structure the following general results are obtained:

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Creativity in Structural Design

• The mass of the structure: 951725.389 kg.

• Maximum displacements of each load-case of the model at end-points and mid-points of each
element of the trusses: 0.039 m.
• Resulting force gravity of each load-case of the model: 9517.25 kN.
• Internal elastic energy of each load-case of the model: 219.71 kNm.

Figure 7: Displacement
Karamba allows different types of analysis, each being represented by a specific graphic output. These
images show the structural behavior of the arches, highlighting axial forces as well as the displacement
of each structural element. The maximum axial stress can be observed in the diagonals and upper
elements of the arches, as seen in Figure 6. The maximum displacements are concentrated in the two
arches that are closest to the buttresses, as seen in Figure 7.

Figure 8: Parametric model of the structure

The final step of the definition consisted in creating the secondary aluminum structure of the dome. The
MeshEdit plugin allowed to easily complete this task, thanks to the set of components which expand
Grasshopper mesh editing ability. The copper roof was created by drawing the bi-linear hyperbolic
paraboloids [5] as 4 points surfaces in Grasshopper. The final parametric 3D model of the roof is shown
in Figure 8.

5. Simulation of the first structural proposal to solve the geometry of the Sports Palace
dome using parametric tools.
The first structural proposal consisted in verifying the hypothesis of a tensegrity structure with the height
of the arches reduced to 2.5m, as suggested by Félix Candela: this step was easily obtained using the
previous Grasshopper definition where the height of the arches was originally parameterized. The
existing structure was then converted into a tensegrity model, where the upper and lower chords of the
arches have been modeled as cables while diagonals and uprights have been modeled as rigid poles. The
interactive simulation of the behavior of the tensegrity structure was conducted with Kangaroo Physics
plugin. The simulation showed that using only the main structure as a tensegrity system, the structure
would collapse (Figure 9) as mentioned by Eng. Oscar de Buen.

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Creativity in Structural Design

Figure 9: Collapse of the stressed structure

Few adjustments were made in order to stabilize the structure: the upper and lower tendons (chords)
were set to work with clamping, thus avoiding excessive deformations; moreover, a secondary set of
tendons was added using the primary beams of the secondary aluminum structure of the actual dome,
thus creating connections between the intersection points of the diagonals of the trusses. With these
changes to the tensegrity system, the simulation with Kangaroo Physics shows that the structure does
not collapse although a strong deformation occurs. Such deformation can be handled by working on the
pretension of the tendons.

Figure 10: Stabilized structure.

When the simulation reaches the final equilibrium the tensegrity structure has the maximum deformation
at the center of the dome and it shows the following differences with respect to the existing structure:
• Minimum displacement: 0.361 m.
• Maximum displacement: 8.169 m.
• Height difference: 7.508 m.

Figure 11: Displacement.

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6. Conclusion
By comparing the design methodology and tests carried out in the years prior to the building of the dome
of the Sports Palace with modern parametric digital simulation and finite elements analysis with
Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, Kangaroo Physics and Karamba 3D, it can easily be observed how modern
technologies allow faster and more accurate prevision of structural behavior. It was easy to verify that
the built structure is stable and does not allow large deformations in all its elements under normal design
conditions. This also means that the methodologies used by Félix Candela in conjunction with Oscar de
Buen and Julio Damy among others were correct, although obviously representing a greater investment
of resources and time if compared with actual design and simulation tools.
The simulation of the first proposal by Félix Candela, consisting of a tensegrity structure with arches
height set to 2.5m, pointed out that by using only the main structure (steel arches) with upper and lower
tube sections replaced by tendons, the tensegrity system is unstable at the initial configuration and the
dome collapses, reaching a stable configuration only as a horizontal roof. By considering the main beams
of the secondary aluminum structure as additional tendons it was proved that a stable and dome-like
tensegrity structure can be implemented. Therefore, the secondary structure must work together with the
main structure in case of a tensegrity system: part of the secondary structure is necessary to support the
hyperbolic paraboloids of the roof. As per the deformations of the tensegrity structure, it is recommended
to carry out more simulations considering different prestressed tendons in order to reduce the
deformations to a minimum allowed by international standards.

References
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