Double Deck Temporary Structure – The 152nd Open at Royal Troon
We interviewed one of our Owners and Chief Construction Builder about the build of one of the new Double Deck Temporary Structures we built for this years Open Golf 2024 Championship at Royal Troon.
For those of you who don’t know whilst we build stretch tents and that is predominantly our business, our Chief Construction builder has been building temporary structures or marquees to most people, for the last 22 years. When we talk about Temporary Structures this includes large marquees such as 20 metre, 25 metre, 30 metre wide single, double or triple deck structures, so they are quite big!
For the first time since having our own company we had been asked to get involved in The Open Golf. It is something we had wanted to get involved in for a while now, always hoping we would do something ourselves, but helping with it also a great honour. The Open is one of the biggest golfing events in the UK if the Ryder Cup or Farnborough does not happen.
We had been asked to help with a new facility for the Players that The Open added to the collection of infrastructure and facilities they normally have for the first time this year. We were approached to deliver and build this new facility on behalf of The Arena Group.
A lot of this structure was completely new, it was new territory for everyone involved, so we were the first people to build and trial the new ‘marquee’.
When you have something new there are always challenges, but nothing we couldn’t overcome. There were some delays with European shipping and transportation, which made us run over slightly but got there in the end.
The new marquee structure and system was very good, in comparison to others I have built before, the facias and windows were much lighter it was much user friendly to handle and install.
We had provided an entire build, team which we brought up for the duration.
The structure was a 20 metre x 45 metre double deck was used as main area for the players and a 10 metre x 15 metre double deck was used as kitchen space with a small 5x5m spill out area for the catering team.
There is a strict process when you are building any structure / marquee but particularly when building a double deck, it requirements immense precision, as its much more work to go back if something has been done incorrectly.
Imagine a two-story building – that’s essentially what we created. Construction of this marquee starts with raising and meticulously levelling all the individual legs and baseplates to the desired level. Once completed you then install the ground floor, which then leads you on to be able to erect all the steel. Normally a structure like this is built in configurations of 5 metres, in a grid format. On this structure it was slightly different, in it they have a 7.5metre grid but as we did 20m wide it had to be 7.5 metre grid for the most of its expanse and with a 5 metre grid bay on the front.
Once all the legs are in place, level and raised we continue with erecting all the steel for the first-floor support. Once all the steel is all erected, braced and bolted in, then next important task is to install safety equipment this then allows you to access the first floor. This includes nets underneath the flooring and edge protection around the perimeter.
The build can then continue with laying the first floor, once it’s laid you then lay out and assemble the first-floor structure. This consists of an aluminium frame, this is like a Meccano set, as many people call it. It all gets pinned together, and pivots up, this structure had curved beams, which is becoming much more popular in design and stronger. Once raised its braced and fixed, once that’s all completed you then continue with then pulling the PVC roofs in. The roofs have kadars on each side, which allows them to slide into kadar channels on the roof beams. You pull in the roofs and then tension. The gables were then installed, which had been custom made for the event adorned with the event branding.
Once the roof is on its time to seal it in, which consisted of a mixture of solid sides, glass, doors, we even put a sliding door on the ground floor for the main entrance.
We also had 10x30m deck area with glass handrails all the way around that was to sit on the front. These unfortunately had not arrived during our build time, so we installed the subbase ready for another team to install once this had arrived.
There were also staircases, which were installed out of scaffolding, these were then cladded for a complete finish.
We were onsite for 13 days and as we were in Scotland, the home of golf, we took advantage of this and played some golf in the evenings, not the Open site on this occasion, however there were lots of courses in the area. We also dipped our toes (admittedly chilly) in the Scottish Sea.
The dismantling process, which will take place in a few weeks, will essentially be a reverse order of this meticulous construction. We’re fortunate to have enjoyed fantastic weather and the charming town of Troon. Working alongside familiar faces I have worked with since being in this industry (2002) added another layer of joy to this remarkable project.
Congratulations to Xander Schauffele for winning this years major links championship with a final score of -9 under par.
