Each of the 8 steel petals on that roof weighs 500 tons, roughly the weight of a loaded commercial aircraft, and the whole system opens in 8 minutes. The motors running all 8 petals combined produce less power than a Honda Civic engine. Two things inspired the design: the oculus, the circular skylight at the top of Rome's Pantheon built about 1,900 years ago, and how a camera lens opens and closes.
Then there's the video board. A 360-degree LED screen wraps the inside of the roof, 58 feet tall and 1,075 feet around, big enough for a helicopter to fly through the center. Stand it upright and it clears Atlanta's tallest building by 50 feet. It came in 35 trucks, was put together from 600 pieces, holds 37 million LEDs, and when it debuted in 2017 it was nearly three times larger than any screen the NFL had ever used.
The stadium took 39 months to build, used 27,000 tons of structural steel, and covers 2 million square feet, about 35 NFL fields laid end to end. Final cost: $1.6 billion. Add the $200 million World Cup upgrade and the total hits $1.8 billion.
In November 2017 it became the first professional sports venue in the world to earn LEED Platinum, the top level of green building certification. The 4,000 solar panels produce enough power to run 9 full NFL home games a year. A 680,000-gallon underground tank collects rainwater from the roof and redirects it to local tree programs and the stadium's cooling systems. The LED lighting uses 60% less energy than standard stadium lights.
FIFA does not allow commercial brand names on tournament venues, so the building goes by Atlanta Stadium this summer. It hosts 8 matches between June 15 and July 15, closing with a semifinal.
“EsTaDoS UniDoS No EsTá LiSTo PaRa Un MuNdiAL” 🤡
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