Downtown Summerlin is an open-air shopping, dining and entertainment development in the Las Vegas Valley. Featuring 1.8 million square feet of retail space, the shopping center uses 16 freestanding tensile structures inspired by the forms of the surrounding desert landscape to shade walkways.
The project features a massive surface area of 59,775 square feet of both PTFE and ETFE membrane requiring 253 tons of complex steel assemblies to distribute their loads. At the heart of the design is a mast-supported PTFE conical structure with uniquely large compression ring covering the shopping center’s courtyard. Most compression rings are round, but here the desired form required an oval, resulting in extremely large trusses. Its tip is clad with ETFE featuring a printed frit. ETFE’s transparent properties allow natural light to shine down on the shops below and provide a contrasting uplighting effect at night. The cone integrates galvanized cables that are PVC coated when in contact with the membrane. Its tip integrates a stainless-steel cable net, galvanized hardware, and threaded rods. The cone’s structure attaches to four different buildings while inducing minimal loads. ETS finished the entire supporting structures at a facility in Dallas and shipped components ready for assembly on site.
ETS’ scope also included 12 cantilevered tensile structures covering the four main walkways leading to the mast-supported canopy, and six freestanding fabric structures designed to resemble tail-less flying bat rays. The freestanding structures required unique, double-curved steel supports.
