Trimble’s Tekla Software Helps Kick off World Cup

In a late-June announcement, Trimble revealed that eight of the iconic stadiums hosting the 2018 World Cup were made using its software.

Saransk’s Mordovia Arena, with its shape and color scheme based on the Republic of Mordovia’s image of a setting sun, was one of the stadiums built with Tekla Structures. (Image courtesy of StadiumDB.)

While the 2018 World Cup has featured a series of upsets and unexpected victories, the finalist teams aren’t the only victors on the field this year. Building information modeling (BIM) provider Trimble has revealed that its Tekla Structures program helped build eight of the tournament’s 12 stadiums.

Tekla Structures is a BIM software that allows users to create structural models and coordinate workflows, ensuring the information is easily circulated between design and construction professionals. According to a late-June announcement by parent company Trimble, the tournament stadiums in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Saransk, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Sochi and Kazan were all built with the company’s digital modeling tools.

Zenit Arena, also known as Krestovsky Stadium or Saint Petersburg Stadium. (Image courtesy of St. Petersburg Official City Guide.)

The largest of the eight stadiums is Saint Petersburg’s Zenit Arena, a spaceship-esque stadium that seats approximately 67,000 fans. The arena is significant for its retractable roof and rollout field, as well as a difficult early construction period. After 10 years of construction, the project was taken over by steel fabricator Kurganstalmost. According to Trimble, Kurganstalmost found using Tekla “critical” given the stadium’s challenging construction schedule. 

Spartak Stadium, also known as Otkritie Arena. (Image courtesy of The Stadium Guide.)

Moscow’s Spartak Stadium, which was recently the site where England overcame its penalty kick curse to defeat Colombia, is best known for its unique façade. The red and white building is covered in diamond-shaped panels that overlap to produce a scale-like pattern, and the complex pattern required a never-before-seen grid geometry of beams underlying it. More prosaically, the building is designed so that its thick-walled pipes cut down on overall metal consumption, allowing for a roof that weighs a relatively light 8,500 tons.

The Volgograd Arena. (Image courtesy of FIFA.)

The Volgograd Arena, unsurprisingly located in the city of Volgograd, superficially looks like Beijing’s famous “Bird’s Nest” Stadium. According to Trimble, Tekla technology was indispensable when building its unique cable-stayed roof and mesh façade: “Our constructible, highly accurate building information models support the entire workflow from design to manufacturing, and from construction to maintenance.”

Saransk’s Mordovia Arena, which seats 44,000 and was selected for four of the tournament’s matches, experienced some difficulties midway through its construction process. After the 2015 economic collapse, the contractors had to change plans on the fly, including replacing the planned composite panel roof with tinware and scrapping the proposed media façade. In its announcement, Trimble said that its software allowed the contractors to “streamline their workflow and ensure productive communication among different divisions.”

Tekla Structures was also involved in the construction of the tournament’s Nizhny Novgorod Stadium, Samara Arena, the Fisht Stadium in Sochi and the Kazan Arena.