SOFI STADIUM
KHUSHI AG (02) (A)
JANHAVI CHAVAN (07) (A)
Introduction
Location : INGLEWOOD, UNITED STATES
Architects: HKS
Area : 288000 m²
Year : 2021
ABOUT SOFI STADIUM
➢ SoFi Stadium is a 70,240-seat sports and entertainment indoor stadium in
the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California, United States. SoFi
occupies the former site of the Hollywood Park Racetrack, 3 miles (4.8 km)
from Los Angeles International Airport and immediately southeast of Kia
Forum.
➢ Opened in September 2020, the fixed-roof stadium is home to the National
Football League (NFL)'s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, as
well as the annual LA Bowl in college football.
CLIMATE
➢ Los Angeles is surrounded by mountains and sea, mild climate and
pleasant, mild weather.
➢ A sustained temperature of 10 degrees to 30 degrees in between, even in
the hot summer.
➢ In the shade, it would be very cool under any circumstances, because the
temperature difference is relatively large,
CAPACITY
➢ The new Hollywood Park in Inglewood, three venues - the 70,000-seat SoFi
Stadium (which can be expanded to accommodate up to 100,000 guests
with removable seats), the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater and the 2.5-acre
American Airlines Plaza - were designed under a massive, curved roof.
Football Court
The Field of Play:
➢ The 7-a-side field shall be a rectangle:
maximum dimensions of 70 meters by 50
meters, minimum dimensions of 50 meters
by 35 meters. The smaller field is
recommended for lower ability teams.
➢ The goal size shall be 5 meters by 2
meters.
➢ The goal area shall be 8 meters by 20
meters.
➢ The recommended playing surface is grass.
ZONING AND PLAN
ACTIVITY AREA
THE SPECTATOR TERRACES
CONCOURSE SURROUNDING
CIRCULATION AREA
OPEN SPACE
Level Plans
Sections
➢ The football field lies 100 feet below ground level – double the
depth of any other NFL venue. To accomplish this, more than 7 million
cubic yards of dirt were excavated from the stadium bowl
➢ The FAA’s height restrictions, one of the project’s initial design
challenges, became one of the most prominent features within the
overall project: the seating bowl sits 100-feet below the existing
grade – about two to three times the depth of other similar multiuse
venues.
➢ The partially submerged design made the stadium an embedded
object, a layout inspired by the unique architecture and geography of
Southern California. East West Section Perspective
➢ The roof, bowl, and concourses were sculpted to evoke an outdoor
venue while providing the flexibility of a traditional domed stadium.
➢ The region’s unique climate also informed the design of the
monumental roof. Made of single-layer ethylene tetrafluoroethylene
(ETFE), the fritted roof is comprised of more than 300 panels.
➢ ETFE reduces solar heat gain and allows natural light to flood into the
stadium and American Airlines Plaza, adding to the allure of an
indoor/outdoor space.
➢ SoFi Stadium’s innovation also helps provide airline passengers with a
breathtaking view as they take off and land.
North South Section Perspective
Roof
➢ The monumental exterior shell and roof structure of the Hollywood Park
project has a distinct form reminiscent of Pacific coastal waves that wash
ashore just over five miles away.
➢ The porous canopy is comprised of more than 35,000 anodized
aluminum panels, with each panel conforming to the geometry in a way
that no two are the same.
➢ The region is also filled with seismic fault lines and the risk of earthquakes,
something the HKS design team needed to account for. SoFi Stadium’s
free-standing roof that hovers above, around, and over the massive venue
is held up by 37 massive earthquake-resistant columns.
➢ The roof is open on three sides, which allows for ocean breezes to flow
through the seating bowl. A giant, “seismic moat” up to 12’ wide and 100’
deep also encircles the stadium to keep guests safe during earthquakes. If
there’s a temblor, the roof and stadium move independently from one
another, separated by the massive moat.
Construction and technology
➢ An LED system embedded in the stadium’s roof can ➢ The stadium is built with an arching steel truss compression ring supporting a double grid cable
project images and video to passengers traveling in net roof covered with translucent ETFE and surrounded with perforated aluminum panels
and out of LAX Airport, making the roof the world’s
largest television screen. ➢ The roof, the largest of its kind ever built, is comprised of 302 ETFE panels, including 46 mechanized
vents that allow the heat generated by more than 70,000 spectators to dissipate.
➢ SoFi Stadium is labeled an indoor-outdoor stadium
because the canopy shell that covers the stadium is ➢ The massive roof consists of more than 1400 tons of double orthogonal grid steel, and
not attached to the bowl as is traditionally done with approximately 67,000 tons of ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) membrane, secondary steel,
indoor stadiums. gutters, cross clamp ,cable struts, and retractable vents.
➢ The canopy has 27,000 embedded LED pucks, ➢ The 20,000-ton steel truss compression ring reaches the ground at three points and has additional
which can display images and video that can also be support from thirty-seven earthquake-resistant columns as high as 100-feet from grade.
seen from airplanes flying into Los Angeles
International Airport. The stadium bowl has open ➢ The 13-acre stadium roof is open on three sides and is a completely separate structure seismically
sides and seats 70,240 spectators for most events, isolated from the stadium bowl.
with the ability to expand by 30,000 seats for larger
events.
Oculus video board
SoFi Stadium incorporates cutting-edge
technology including the 360-degree, dual-sided
Infinity Screen by Samsung, which makes the
action on the field larger than life for fans inside
the stadium.
The Infinity Screen on SoFi stadium is 37
meters (122 feet) above the field, so each fan
can see everything at any moment. The oval
display spans 6.5 square meters (70,000
square feet). It has roughly 80 million pixels
that provide visitors with the experience they
can't get anywhere else.
ELEVATIONS
WEST ELEVATION
EAST ELEVATION
SOUTH ELEVATION NORTH ELEVATION
PARKING ZONES
➢ Parking Zones are comprised of
multiple parking lots within a zone
situated throughout SoFi Stadium and
Hollywood Park.
➢ Parking Pass Holders will be assigned a
color-coded parking pass that
corresponds to a particular Parking
Zone and designated parking gate.
➢ The Parking Zones and corresponding
parking lots are as follows:
SoFi Stadium also raises the bar with an Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) roof comprised of 302 unique picture frames, each varying between 30,000 to 70,000 pounds in
weight, that broadcasts live football and visuals. The roof is supported by a 1,450-ton, 75,000-foot-long double cable net system.
Construction design and detailing firm DBM Vircon used Tekla Structures, Trimble’s BIM solution, to model and detail the roof’s complex steelwork and extensive on-site
temporary steelwork that would support preassembly of large elements. “With the weight and geometry of the structure, the ability to model to a high level of detail in Tekla
Structures was critical in making sure everything would fit together,” said Tim Rachow, senior project manager at DBM Vircon. “We modeled to LOD 400, down to nuts and bolts,
of which there were thousands. Everything came together extremely well and that’s a testament to the planning and detail and accuracy of the Tekla model.”
Challenging Connections and Seismic Considerations
The project’s roof design required a plated boxed compression ring with large bi-directional tensioned cables that crossed high above
the field below and supported the stadium’s 2.2 million-pound circular video screen.
DBM Vircon and Schuff Steel worked closely with the project’s structural engineer of record, Walter P Moore to account for deflection
and ensure the roof could structurally respond to seismic forces independently of the bowl structure. Walter P Moore worked entirely
in 3D, using a shared Tekla model created by DBM Vircon. “The compression ring at the inner edge of the roof had a series of very
complicated connections,” said Mark Waggoner, principal and lead roof designer at Walter P Moore. “We modeled the connections and
created our drawings from the Tekla model. At the same time, we provided the portion of the model with those complex connections
to DBM Vircon to plug into their model as they populated the rest of the connections on the project. Pretty much everything we did
lived in the Tekla model in one way or the other.”
Waggoner credits this continuous flow of data with eliminating the chance for error. “There’s basically no possibility for misinterpreting
the data when we keep it in the model from the very early stages of design and share the same data with the detailer and fabricator,
Schuff Steel, throughout the connection modeling and fabrication process,” he said. “It’s this continuity of data that makes us
confident that nothing will go wrong, especially with a geometrically complex project like SoFi Stadium.”
Walter P Moore also modeled the structure to support the stadium’s video screen, a dual-sided, center hung 70,000 square foot digital
LED display. “The support was woven into the roof and cable net design,” said Waggoner. “A series of modular trusses were
prefabricated and brought to the site where they were stacked on the playing field. The cable net was complete so we used strand
jacks to lift the display 32 feet off the ground until the cladding and electrical work were finished and the display could be lifted to its
permanent home 122 feet above the field.”
Cross-team Collaboration for the Win
A project of this magnitude and complexity requires tight collaboration. At the beginning of the project, Schuff Steel and DBM Vircon
met with the design team daily, using the data-rich Tekla model to visualize both the big picture and key details. “As challenging as
this project was, it was collaboration across teams that really made it work,” said Christopher Pfeiff, global GM at DBM Vircon. “Every
decision made impacted multiple teams. Through the power of Tekla Structures, everyone from the design team and our group doing
the detailing and modeling, to the erector and fabricator, could visualize the project at an extreme level of detail to make critically
important decisions. It was exciting to come together to bring this project to life.”
