The extensive bamboo forests of southern China were the inspiration for the design, whose slim stanchions carry the weight of the stands and the wide-span roof structure. Visitors pass through the forest of steel supports into the first circulating area of the stadium, and thence go either up the steps to the upper tier or straight on to the lower tier.
The image of a bamboo forest is created by the double row of steel supports, where every other in the inner row is connected with the concrete structure of the undulating upper tier, thus carrying the vertical loads of the spectator seating. The steel tubes, which are up to 32 m in length, range from 55 cm to 80 cm, varying in accordance with their differing static loads.
A membrane roof suspended from an outer frame was selected to cover the seating areas. With a diameter of 230 m and cantilevering of 54 m on each side of the stands, the roof is carried by 36 pairs of cables whose pre-tensioning is brought together via a circular double tension ring of strand-bundle cables above the pitch. The stadium is designed to hold a capacity of 40,000 spectators.
