The Hamburg Boomerang

Located in the city of Hamburg, the unique design of the new roof for the central bus station ZOB will be a landmark with its own unique identity. The arrangement of bus parking led to the significant and individual half-moon shaped geometry of the roof. Resembling an enormous 200 m long boomerang, the roof hovers above the service buildings and the entire bus station, and has an area of 4,000 m 2 . The roof structure is supported by a colonnade of slender 12 m high steel columns, which follow the curvature of the multi-rib steel shell structure that supports the cantilever beams. Transparent glass panels are fixed underneath the steel purlins spanning between the filigree cantilevers. This article describes the structural design, the structural behaviour and special features of the fabrication and erection.