Construction of Assembly Hall (Champaign)

[2] State Farm Center, the first-ever concrete dome arena, hosts the campus's teams in men's and women's basketball, numerous concerts and other events.

[5] The arena was renamed State Farm Center in 2013 after the Illinois-based insurance company purchased the naming rights to the facility for $60 million over 30 years.

The student enrollment at the University of Illinois was growing tremendously through the years and the school's Building Committee wanted to plan for future growth.

The project was overseen by Ray C. Dickerson, president of Felmley-Dickerson Co. who hired architects Harrison & Abramovitz and structural engineering firm Ammann & Whitney, of New York City.

[8] Max Abramovitz was helped by his University of Illinois teacher Louise Woodroofe, with design, who recommended circus-inspired features such as wide entry door at the base and ceiling installation for rigging a trapeze.

The construction crews first dug down 15 feet (4.6 m) from ground level and poured the concrete ring on high-density, hard gray clay.

The center floor of the stadium is 24 feet (7.3 m) below ground level, however the contractors decided not to excavate all of the dirt before the roof was constructed.

This decision gave the construction crews more surface area to work on, and decreased the height of scaffolding used when forming the concrete roof.

As mentioned in the foundation section, the contractors decided not to fully excavate the interior of the building in order to reduce the required height of the steel tower and allow more surface area for construction crews.

"[1] Once the concrete had finished curing and dried, the top of the roof was painted with three applications of plastic material for water and weatherproofing.

[1] The dome shape of the roof, by design, causes both vertical and horizontal reactions or forces on the buildings walls and monoliths.

[8] Felmley-Dickerson Co sub-contracted Preload Co. of New York City to post-tension a concrete ring girder around the perimeter of the dome.

[1] Preload Co. borrowed a special horizontal-wheeled tractor from the missile silo work to wind the steel wire around the dome.

The rubber band (the steel wire) wants to constrict into a smaller circle, while the roof of Assembly Hall pushes radially outward.

of total cross-sectional area of wrapped steel was fully encased in 200 cu yd of grout, creating a permanent bond.