Kauri's Scales

Project idea

The brief of this project was to design a sports club for a juniour football club that was to include a 90x45 pitch aswell as an indoor multi use sport court. The location was a tightly constrained site inbetween a main road and a rail line.

Project description

This design is based on a Maori Legend called “The Tohora and the Kauri Tree”. The legend highlights the important connection between the Kauri tree and the Southern White Whale. The ‘Skin” of the building is made to look like fish scales like in the legend when Kauri was given Tohora’s skin that was covered in scales.

Technical information

The main problem faced in this design was the design of the roof structure. The roof is separated into 4 pieces, each span a significant distance. The solution to this problem was to design a timber grid shell as the roof structure. Unlike a truss design, a timber grid shell design can span large distances with minimal support and does not need to be supported from either end.

Documentation

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