Multipurpose hall, Lenk

The project
The former gymnasium in Lenk had long since ceased to meet requirements. The municipality in Simmental therefore had a multi-purpose hall built. On the one hand, it serves as a gymnasium for the local schools and sports clubs. In addition, the hall has a large, well-equipped stage that is over 10 meters deep. In addition, the hall also has a kitchen and various adjoining rooms and can thus be used in a very wide variety of ways.

The construction
The walls and the foundation of the hall were built in solid construction, the window wall and the roof construction are made of wood. The supporting structure of the vaulted roof consists of trusses. The reason for this was that the ventilation ducts could thus be routed through the supporting structure in the middle of the hall. The building is braced by means of the concrete discs that lead up to the roof.

The challenge
A rather low height was available for the supporting structure. At the same time, however, in Lenk, which is located at an altitude of a good 1000 meters, high snow loads on the roofs must always be expected in winter. The bottom chord of the truss curves slightly upward toward the wall, about 10 to 20 cm. This means that the structure has a greater static height in the middle of the hall and is therefore more resilient. In addition, the supporting structure not only has to bear the snow, but must also be able to absorb the vertical and horizontal forces generated by the use of the sports equipment attached to the trusses. For this purpose, an auxiliary structure with clamped crossbeams and a bracing cross above it was created to stabilize the trusses and to transfer the horizontal forces into the bracing roof slab.