A blue tortoise on the Black Sea

The roof and walls of the Yuzhny Sport Complex in Odessa, Ukraine, are a combination of outstanding architecture, the extraordinary use of materials and excellent craftsmanship. The result is certainly worth seeing: The blue "tortoise" on the Black Sea with its surface structure, a landmark of Odessa, a modern city at the eastern tip of Europe.

The idea

Everything started with the idea of the architect Yuri Seryogin from Kiev to build a high-tech sports complex in the shape of a gigantic tortoise for the design of the roof. So key elements in the design were solidity and durability, combined with very low maintenance requirements.

The 6,000 m2 roof and façade of the “extraterrestrial” appearing building certainly presented a challenge to Böhme Haustechnik GmbH – a German specialist for sophisticated metal roofing.

The architect searched for a modern environmentally compatible material allowing creative colour design. This is why it was decided to use Falzonal® coil-coated aluminium in standing seam quality. Falzonal® from Novelis Germany has been used in all the world's climate zones for about 40 years.

The roofing material

The material: AlMn1Mg0,5 alloy, temper H41 and the paint (PVdF in quality 80/20) are specially adapted to the requirements of standing seam technique. The aluminium strip including the paint features extremely good shaping properties. The coil coating process ensures optimum adherence of the paint to the aluminium surface.

In the case of the sports complex in Odessa, the architect specified the special colour azure blue metallic. This special PVdF paint not only has a metallic appearance, it is also a translucent colour that changes with the lighting. In the morning, it has a blue appearance, changing to a copper tone in the course of the day, with many different variations between these extremes.

Special effects

This effect is heightened by a technical innovation, honeycomb surface structuring, and used for the first time on a large scale for the Odessa project. This process gives the surface a three-dimensional structure of hexagonal elements which imitate natural structuring, changing its appearance when viewed from different angles. In honeycomb surface structuring by this process, the metal surface and the paint remain entirely undamaged in contrast to conventional metal embossing systems.

For the sports complex in Odessa, the Falzonal were initially structured, then cut to size and seamed in accordance with the detailed plans that had been drawn up. The roof skin was installed as a non-ventilated structure with a supporting substructure of trapezoidal sheeting. Foamglas® was used for thermal insulation.

Under the roof of the blue tortoise shell, the habitants of Yuzhnij call it “Olimp”, many sport activities and big events can take place from now on.

New optics

The aluminium surface finishes so-called “look-alike colours” has to be highlighted: special PVdF paints with the similar optics as copper (also patinated/aged), zinc, titanium or stainless steel. Optically the painted surface looks like the original materials. In contrast to competing “heavy metals” like copper or zinc PVdF-painted aluminium is ranked environmentally friendly.

For more information about falzonal® see

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