BEMO and its key partner Prater received the prestigious British Roofing Awards 2019. They won the Protective Coating and Facade Cladding category. The award was presented to the partners for solving a complex innovative task of creating a roof for the famous Wimbledon court.
Court number 1 is one of the main sites of the Wimbledon tournament. The court began its history in 1924, since then it has gone through several transformations. In 2016, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) decided to make further changes - to increase the capacity of the court and … build a roof over it. This was somewhat revolutionary, since no court in Wimbledon had previously had a roof and all matches were played outdoors.
Construction work began in 2016 and ended this summer, right in time for the new championship. Now athletes and spectators are protected from the changeable English weather by a sliding roof, which also “helps” the grass cover to grow: the structure is designed in such a way as to give the plants the maximum amount of sunlight.
For the new roof, Prater supplied over 7,000 m2 profile with standing seam N65. The BEMO engineering group, in turn, has developed the TP35 trapezoidal profile and the conical standing seam panels. These panels are made of two-layer aluminum and covered with a protective PVDF RAL6007 polymer. The unique BEMO-Flex leveling substructure was used for the installation of complex roofs. It was developed specifically for this project; the system is based on a 3D study of the building structure. BEMO-Flex allows you to smoothen construction tolerances and it is thanks to it that the outer surface of the roof fully matches the design intent.
The renovation of the court demanded a high level of professionalism from Prater and its employees: the work was carried out at a high altitude with a steep roof slope - up to 45 ° in some areas. The specialists were trained in advance to work with the use of rope access systems, which helped prevent injuries.
Up to 60 people could be on the site at the same time. In order for the project to work smoothly, Prater and BEMO had to clearly coordinate their actions and strictly control all stages and deadlines of work. The limited area of the territory created additional complexity: there was practically nowhere to store materials. To solve this problem, Prater and BEMO have established competent logistics. As a result, the partners managed to achieve almost impossible for such a large-scale project - to meet the deadlines and budget with an accuracy of minutes and pence.
