Under its roof, the building combines an archeological excavation, market hall, urban open-air venue, and extraordinary shadow structure made of timber, with an integrated restaurant and walks offering wonderful views over the town.
The structural system is a hybrid structure consisting of timber, concrete, steel, and composite steel.
Timber Structure with Panels Made of Laminated Veneer Lumber
The most interesting and spectacular part of the Metropol Parasol is the 150 m (492 ft) long and up to 92 ft (28 m) walk-on timber structure made of multi-layer glued laminated veneer lumber panels of the Kerto‑Q type (product of the Finnforest company).
This achievement was only possible thanks to a number of design innovations, such as the 2-3 mm (0.08-0.12 in) thick polyurethane coating, assembly-optimized connection details, and the tempering of the epoxy resin used for gluing in the threaded rods, a world-first in timber construction. This tempering became necessary to increase the level of safety, as temperatures inside the timber structure can reach around 60°C (140°F) in summer.
The structural engineer and the timber construction company opted for the connection system with glued-in tension rods because it is a connection concept with a very high load-bearing capacity and comparatively low weight.
The timber structure consists of approximately 3,400 individual parts, and a total of approximately 2,500 m³ (88,286 ft³) of laminated veneer lumber panels were used.
Stress Analysis with RFEM in Timber Panels
Since the panels are connected with hinges around the vertical axis at the intersection points, the internal forces from the load-bearing effect of the plates are almost always negligible.
The stress design is generally reduced to the stresses in the plane of the panel. The timber cross‑sections in the branching areas, where the timber gridshell is divided into a top and a bottom half, were designed by Finnforest using RFEM with FE sheet models.
| Structural Engineering | Timber Construction, Detailed Structural Analysis and Design Finnforest, Aichach, Germany www.metsagroup.com/metsawood in cooperation with: Harrer Engineers, Karlsruhe PBB engineers, Ingolstadt APU engineering, Braunschweig Wevo Chemie, Ostfildern Borimir Radovic, Knittlingen Structural Engineering Arup & Partners International Ltd. Berlin and Madrid, Spain www.arup.com |
| Construction | Main Contractor SACYR S.A.U. Seville, Spain www.sacyr.com Timber Construction Finnforest, Aichach, Germany |
| Architecture | Jürgen Mayer H., Berlin, Germany www.jmayerh.de |
| Investor | Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, Spain |
