Situation: a taste village and open-air lounge at Australia's premier tennis event
For this year’s Grand Slam tournament, Tennis Australia wanted to debut a high-impact new eating and drinking precinct with the aesthetic of Melbourne’s iconic Laneways. The client vision included strategically-mounted LED screens and an outdoor lounge with Mediterranean beach club appeal.
Royal Wolf was tasked with supplying and modifying a substantial volume of containers to provide the support structure and vendor spaces across this multipurpose installation.
“We’ve been working with Tennis Australia for four years now but this was the biggest scale job yet,” says Patrick Weber, Regional Sales Manager at Royal Wolf. “We are in 12 different areas, with five stacked installations, comprising 109 units.”
- Needs of the client
- Entrance – Double Stack
- Grand Slam Oval – Main Stack
- Grand Slam Oval – V Stack
- Northern Beach – Double Stack Screen
- Lower Terrace – Triple Stack Screen
- 104 x 20-foot containers
- 4 x 40-foot containers
- 1 x 10-foot container
Solution: delivering a uniform result for multiple vendors without compromising safety
Royal Wolf’s extensive stacking credentials meant speedy turnarounds for the stacking components. External engineers took five weeks to wrap the more complex design for the Grand Slam centrepiece with its kiosks, laneways and bars.
“The area is 38 x 38 metres. It’s double-stacked. There’s a cantilevered LED screen that weighs over a tonne so we put lots of ballast inside the containers,” says Patrick Weber, conveying the challenge scale.
Walkways constructed out of floating containers had to be welded; with special locks installed.
“We couldn’t have anything protruding too far because the cladding needed to be exactly uniform across the project,” says Patrick Weber.
Collaborating with the cladding crew, Royal Wolf carefully revised how to connect their containers.
“We were asking the engineer, ‘Can we do this? Can we remove that?’,” expands Patrick Weber. “There were a lot of things that were unique about this Australian Open project. But we got it done and we got it done safely.”
- Solutions provided
- Creative logistical solutions
- Container modifications
- Modifications for structure safety
- Engineering
- Containers sourced from several Royal Wolf locations
- Containers delivered on-site
Outcome: an under-utilised space scales up its public engagement
“What Tennis Australia has done this year in that Grand Slam Oval, compared to last year, is extraordinary,” says Patrick Weber. “Our product has engaged with the public in a way that has really activated the space. Everyone’s drawn to it.
“People around me were saying, ‘Look at this thing’, they were amazed. It is a buzz to see the public enjoy these structures so much.
“People don’t realise that they’re containers. You can hear them say, ‘How did they build this?’”
For more information, you can contact Patrick Weber on 0488 988 967 or pweber@royalwolf.com.au
