Innovative design of a suspended large-span exhibition hall roof in Wuzhen, China

The 2019 Light of Internet Expo main exhibition hall in Wuzhen, China has an innovative roof system combining beam strings, multi-span suspended beams and redundant wind-resisting cables, covering an area of 90 m × 211 m. The suspended 200 mm deep beams form an undulating roof of 35.5 m to 48 m in span length. The novel design, which efficiently combines architectural aesthetics and structural force flow, needed to be completed and built in just 7 months for the exhibition. This paper focuses on structural design issues such as form finding, shape optimisation and structural analysis.