Wimbledon Centre Court Retractable Roof
London, United Kingdom
Year:
2009
Material:
Tenara (PTFE)
Area
7000 m²
Client:
All England Lawn Tennis Club
Contractor:
Galiford Try
Engineering:
Tony Hogg Design
New Era Opened as Roof Closes
The retractable roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court is a type of ‘folding fabric concertina’ tensile structure. This allows the roof to be folded into a highly compressed area and parked over the fixed canopy when not in use over the court.
More than 7000 square metres of a very strong flexible translucent woven Tenara material have been used for the fabric architecture roof, which will still allows a level of natural light to reach the grass. The roof has been designed to close and open in under 10 minutes. Each of the nine bays of structural fabric is clamped on either side by prismatic steel trusses spanning approximately 75 metres. The ends of each truss are supported by a set of wheels that move along a track positioned on the new ‘fixed’ roof of the Centre Court.
Another application where Hightex’s position as a world leader in creating tensile structures and fabric architecture in tensioned membranes such as PTFE, PVC, and ETFE is realised.
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