Houston Rockets Unveil New Arena
Chicago Scenic Studios was contracted by the Houston Harris County Sports Authority and the Houston Rockets to put the finishing touches on the Toyota Center, a new multi-purpose state-of-the-art arena. The facility, designed by HOK Sports Facilities Group, Morris Architects, and John Chase Architects, sports a simple yet sophisticated look and will be used for sporting events, family shows, and concerts. Hunt Construction Group, Inc. was the construction manager for the project.

CSSI was hired to create fabric surrounds to enclose the new stadium’s four super columns that provide support for the main roof of the building. The fabric column surrounds, measuring 60-feet-tall and 68-feet-in-circumference, are comprised of smaller steel frames welded together in the CSSI shop. Dan Yuen served as the job lead on the project and supervised the construction of the frames as they went through CSSI’s metals department. He later joined Project Manager Ross Hamilton onsite to complete the installation of the job. Design Engineer Gabe Segoviano took Designer Tom Ryan’s designs and developed 3D CAD layouts and draftings of the project elements.

White polyknit fabric was used to cover the frames based on recommendations by Rosebrand Fabrics because it is inherently flame-retardant with enough elasticity to maintain the shape of the frames, and is easy to clean. The fabric panels were manufactured by Rosebrand Fabrics specifically for the arena. Ralph Clemente supervised the soft goods aspect of the job. CSSI added Rosebrand to the fabrication team to create the fabric panels for the project based on past experiences in working with them on other large-scale projects.
This fast track project was built and installed in just eight weeks.

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