Pinnacle Safety and Training Blog

Dunedin Stadium Project

On paper, the brief was impressive. A brand new stadium, built from the ground up. New Zealand’s largest indoor arena and the second largest in the southern hemisphere. But the showpiece of this amazing new stadium will be its roof. Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium would be the first completely enclosed stadium in the world which will grow real turf, thanks to the very innovative transparent roofing product designed by Vector Foiltec.

Who would have thought you could construct a stadium roof out of plastic bags filled with air? In essence, this is what we have done.

Forsyth Barr Stadium has the first ever permanent roof over a natural playing surface using cushions of ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) inflated with low-pressure air. ETFE is a transparent thermoplastic polymer chosen for its properties of being lightweight (around 1-2% the weight of glass), resilient, self-cleaning (as its surface is non-stick) and able to transmit sunlight. Grass is able to grow underneath ETFE, as it lets in around 95% of UV from sunlight. The roof structure is also designed to maximise sunlight, angled towards the north to optimise sun in the Southern Hemisphere winter.

• Pinnacle Height Safety Pty Ltd were contracted to install the stadium’s Texlon® ETFE roof by Vector Foiltec
• Area of ETFE roof: 20,558m2 in air-inflated pillows 20 metres long by 5 metres wide
• Maximum external height of the main roof is 47 metres, equivalent to a 12-storey building.
• We mobilised an experienced eight man crew of Rope Access Technicians in July 2010, with a planned project timeline of 12 months
• Over the year of construction, our team had to contend with a wide range of climatic conditions and technical challenges, but came through with flying colours
• The job ran to schedule and we met every agreed deadline
• Both the customer and Vector Foiltec have been extremely impressed by our multi-skilled team.