Design Concepts of the Pulkovo Airport Main Terminal Roof Structure

The reconstruction and redevelopment of Pulkovo Airport will establish a high profile gateway to the St Petersburg region. The centrepiece of Phase 1 of the redevelopment is a new Main Terminal Building (MTB) which will provide facilities to cater for up to 17 million passengers per year.

The key architectural feature of the Main Terminal is its roof. Long span lightweight steel structure is supported by vertical cantilever columns and has a complex faceted soffit which evokes the traditional architecture of St Petersburg.

This paper presents the design philosophy for the MTB roof structure and process by which parametric modelling techniques were used to develop and optimise the roof geometry. Generative Components parametric modelling software was used to define a number of geometric parameters which allowed easy manipulation of the roof soffit geometry.

The paper also discusses the member restraint philosophy developed for the long span roof trusses, including a comparative study of code-based hand calculation with non-linear and eigenvalue buckling finite element analysis techniques.