Shelter-Rite roof replacement has acrobatics above and below

Circus Juventas, St. Paul, Minn., replaced the Shelter-Rite tensioned fabric roof on its building as it was making insulation upgrades. Image: Seaman Corp.

Last summer, performing arts circus school Circus Juventas in St. Paul, Minn., looked into improving its building’s efficiency, including better insulation to reduce energy use and to address condensation concerns. Although the building’s “big top,” a tensioned dome roof constructed with Shelter-Rite^® fabric membrane, continued to perform well, the organization decided to replace it at the same time it was doing the insulation upgrades, as it was 25 years old.

The catch was that the roof replacement work needed to be done entirely from outside while leaving the original membrane in place so that the school didn’t have to cancel any classes, rehearsals or performances and the facility could remain fully operational during construction.

A building with a large white oval tensioned fabric roof made of Shelter-Rite material. The structure is surrounded by dense green trees, with a partially empty parking lot in the foreground. — *Image: Seaman Corp.*

A school that trains students in circus arts, Circus Juventas provides classes from the youth recreational level to adult professional. The organization values its tensioned membrane roof, its website says, because the lack of required internal supports is essential to its work.

The structure covers a footprint of nearly 50,000 square feet and has an internal clearspan area of 21,000 square feet.

The new Shelter-Rite roof installation was handled by Rubb Building Systems, which also engineered and designed the new roof and its THERMOHALL^® fabric membrane insulation system.