The Innovators: Roof system and ventilator

Building a large industrial facility in the tropics calls for innovative thinking.

Hatch was required to provide a large exhaust area over a steel-mill’s hot process areas (wire-rod mill, coil handling), and commercially available vent systems designed for the temperate zone were simply inadequate.

Hatch devised a "herringbone" roof system to not only protect the production area from rain, but also to allow the free upward flow of air through the roof panels. This integrated roof-truss-and-ventilation approach lowered the building's horizontal wind loads, lowered the centre of gravity, and lowered the earthquake loads, which resulted in considerable foundation cost savings.

The Hatch innovators were process-designer Dr. Chris Twigge-Molecey, plant engineer Clarence Nicholls, and architect Jim Berry.