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Archiseek / Canada / News / 2007 / January 6

Tumultuous British Columbia winter storms seem to have claimed their latest victim. Vancouver engineers and architects are looking at the high winds of the past few days as the root cause of the fabric tear that led to yesterday's collapse of the cable-supported inflated roof of B.C. Place Stadium. Photos of the now-deflated roof show a large tear starting where the Teflon-coated fibreglass roof meets the exterior compression ring that links it to the main concrete structure of the 60,000-capacity stadium. At a news conference, a spokesman for B.C. Pavilion Corp. referred to the collapse as a "controlled deflation." Control of the roof deflation was built into the design by its engineers, Geiger Berger of New York. The same firm was involved in the design of the inspiration for B.C. Place -- Minneapolis's Metrodome -- which also saw a roof collapse on Nov. 19, 1981.

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