David Morley Architects’ goal in designing the new racquet centre at the prestigious Hurlingham Club was a building that looked good, performed and had minimal environmental impact. It also had to have sound acoustics, to minimise noise levels from four tennis and four squash courts. The result was extensive use of Metsä Wood Kerto LVL.
The 35m x 55m building has a low-profile silhouette and curved sedum roof to fit sleekly into Hurlingham’s 40 acres of gardens.
The main span comprises suspended steel beams placed at 12.9m intervals to create large open spaces. But the architect wanted to use wood in between, for its lightness, structural strength and aesthetic, and also its inherently superior sound absorption properties.
Together Metsä Wood and engineers Price & Myers devised a shallow roof solution that was still capable of carrying the heavy sedum without the densely spaced steel truss structure that equivalent building materials would demand.
This comprised 140 Kerto-Ripa elements (made from structurally glued Kerto LVL) to form a key carrying component for the vaulted roof, with Kerto-Q Panels top and bottom. The former are up to 12.9m long and 645mm thick, with widths of 550mm to 1200mm to accommodate the roof curve.
The reverberation absorption component of the roof consists of incorporating the Kerto-Q panel variant SONANS as the bottom plate. These panels have 50mm of acoustic insulation built in, giving a sound absorption class C.
The wood elements are, in turn, borne on a vaulted steel bowstring truss, with the two fitted flush to accommodate the sedum above.
The innovative structure demanded close liaison between all parts of the design and construction team, but particularly Metsä Wood and the steel contractor.
Assisted by the use of BIM start to finish, the two came up with a range of novel details.
These included the carefully engineered bespoke connections between wood and metal and a design feature that left the steel connectors visible so panels could, where required, be modified on site to make for ease of installation.