The new canopy, which is a world first in the sports sector, has won the ICE London Civil Engineering Special Award. This recognises innovation, potential community use and sustainability. It also celebrates outstanding engineering achievement by companies, organisations and individuals in the capital.
Dervilla Mitchell, on the judging panel for the ICE London Civil Engineering Awards 2011, said: “The structure is light weight, uses less energy than a conventional air hall and can be taken down in four days. But what is more impressive is the potential to roll this out as a low cost solution in communities and for other sports or other uses.
“The delivery of this interesting and sustainable structure was enabled by a client with vision, a strong project manager and excellent team work by the design team.”
Other 2011 awards winners include the Olympic Velodrome and the Barclays bike scheme.
LTA Chief Executive, Roger Draper said: “We set out to create a roof structure that was cheaper, lighter and more practical to help more people to play tennis in all weathers, all year round. So it’s a great honour to be recognised as leading the field for an architectural innovation that could eventually support not just our tennis clubs and centres across the country, but also have an impact across all sports.”
Careful teamwork delivered an inspiring and creative design solution – the removable roof is a prototype which the LTA has invested in to look at ways of creating a revolutionary and practical cover for tennis courts that can be used in community programmes. Using air rather than steel to stabilize the roof, it is 25 per cent of the weight of a traditional roof and can cover much wider surfaces.
The architect responsible for the demountable roof canopy was George Stowell with the Chartered Architect Engineers being Arup and Airlight. The Project Manager was Buro Four.
Published: 06/04/2011
Source: http://www.lta.org.uk/News/2011/March/2011-03-07/A-World-First-For-Tennis/
