The new home grounds of Al Ain Football Club opened in January, after a construction schedule of just 17 months. Thornton Tomasetti provided integrated structural engineering and building skin design services from the concept phase through detailed design for the fast-track, design-build project.

The 25,000-seat FIFA-accredited facility is one of the most sophisticated sports arenas in the Middle East, especially in its sustainability features. The stadium has achieved 2 Pearls in the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council's Pearl Building Rating System.

Inspired by the pattern on the bole of a date palm, the exterior fa�ade references Al Ain's history as home of one of the oldest date plantations in the Gulf. The stadium is clad in panels supported on a steel-framed diagrid, a system that also shades the structure and allows airflow to help cool the stadium.

To speed up the design process, the entire project team worked in parallel, using one Revit model to develop the complex geometry of the fa�ade. We used Grasshopper to review a host of design variations, then linked the model to SAP for structural analysis and to fa�ade analysis software for daylight assessment and reviews of thermal/solar performance. This process enabled the team to quickly identify the most structurally efficient option to meet functional shading and architectural goals.