On 24 March the new roof of the AFAS Stadium, home to Dutch premier league club AZ Alkmaar, reached its highest point. The masterpiece of the new roof, the so called ‘mega truss’ of 170m wide, 18m high and weighing of 600 tons, was built-up in front of the stadium in the previous months, before being lifted by 2 giant cranes. During this operation the cranes, located on each side lifted the mega truss over the main building and main stand into its final position.

The operation started at 08.00 and the whole lifting took about 2 hours to reach the point just above its final position. It took around another 3 hours to secure the mega truss to the supporting structure. At 14.00 the job was done. Now the final works for the roofing can be finalized.

The whole operation was broadcasted on a live stream so fans could tune in for this special moment in the club’s history.

For images and videos of this milestone please refer to the club’s website

Whilst AZ were already developing a new strategy for upgrading the AFAS Stadium and redeveloping the stadium site with commercial functions, the roof collapse on 10 August 2019 speeded up this process. Immediately after the roof incident The Stadium Consultancy was appointed on behalf of AZ as project manager and specialist consultant for the new roof design of the stadium. The new roof structure, designed by Zwarts&Jansma Architects (ZJA) with RoyalHaskoningDHV for the structural engineering, consists of so called ‘cranes’ on three sides of the stadium. The main stand is spanned by a truss with its highest point of 40m above pitch level. Royal BAM Group is contracted and responsible for the definitive design and construction of the new roofing. The execution of the works started on 01 June 2020.

Picture en video from AZ Media