Bristol-based tensile fabric specialist Base Structures can now reveal its major role in the London 2012 games, including working on the Basketball Arena, the largest single temporary structure ever used at an Olympic games, as well as two other iconic venues.
Due to a marketing blackout on firms working on the Games, Base has only just been allowed to promote its starring role.
The Basketball Arena was Base’s biggest-ever project. The firm, which employs 50 people on the St Vincents Trading Estate, clad a ‘skeleton’ 3D frame 30m high and spanning 96m with 20,000 sq m of crystal white tensile fabric to create the illusion of a gigantic ice cube. The individual roof panels alone weighed three quarters of a tonne each – a measure of the logistics involved during the installation process.
The company also clad three striking relocatable shooting ranges at the Royal Artillery Barracks with brightly-coloured discs set into high and low points to create an undulating facade. The discs contained ventilation openings and doorways linking to other sporting arenas.
Base’s complete Olympic portfolio, worth £4.4m in total, included more than 8,000 sq m of protective fabric ballistic screening for the Clay Pigeon Shooting Range, interior fabric mesh screening at the Velodrome, a cable net illuminated entrance feature to the Olympic Park and fabric cladding and internal cable net feature to the EDF main sponsors pavilion, printed merchandising huts and kiosks for Cadbury, the bar roof covering for the press centre and various signage for the Olympic Park
Base managing director John Dalton said: “We were delighted to be a part of the Olympics. It is fair to say we pulled out all the stops to show just how great British manufacturing is and it’s nice to finally be able to talk about it!
“It was an honour to see our hard work and expertise on a world stage and it makes me very proud to be British and of Base for playing our part in the national celebration.
Among recent projects installed by Base, which has a £5m turnover, are the walkway Up at The O2 and structures at Heathrow Terminal 5, the Eden Project and the Mound Stand at Lord's Cricket Ground.
Pictured: The London 2012 Baseball Arena
