Sports Facilities and Technologies

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Sports Facilities and Technologies

Developers, designers and operators increasingly need to create safe, versatile sports amenities that are of lasting value to local and wider communities. Successful sports and leisure facilities have to be user-friendly and operate efficiently. The design process involves many disciplines which are interdependent and mutually supportive, using a holistic approach to achieve the appropriate controls, simplicity, efficiency and economy.

This guide covers planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance criteria, including:

buildings for indoor and outdoor sports;

•

building regulations and health and safety;

•

structure and facades;

•

heating and ventilation;

•

acoustics and lighting;

•

infrastructure;

•

communications and security;

•

stairways and elevators;

•

sustainability;

•

sports-led urban regeneration.

•

Containing most types of sports building, this book uses examples from around the world to develop a definitive reference for practitioners, researchers and students in the areas of sport, leisure, the built environment, building design and facilities management.

Peter Culley is an independent engineer whose work ranges from housing to closing-roof stadiums. His specialist experience in sports facilities design dates back to 1990 when, as a Structural Advisory Engineer with British Steel, he was asked to take a leading role in marketing the steel industry’s products to developers and designers of the new generation of all-seater stadiums.

John Pascoe is a content editor (electromechanical) with Electro- components plc. He previously worked with Arup (1979–2002), Constrado (1978–79) and British Steel (1972–77).

Peter and John co-edited the award-winning book Stadium Engineering (2005).

Cover photo

Time Warner Cable Arena, City of Charlotte in North Carolina, USA, is the home of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Charlotte Bobcats and a premier host venue for concerts and other arena events. The dominant visual element in the arena’s seating bowl is the centre-hung state-of-the-art video display and scoreboard. It is the most technologically advanced scoreboard and sound system in the country and features the largest video screen in use in any NBA facility. Full-screen LED technology allows an unlimited configuration of live and recorded video, scores, anima- tion and graphics. A unique, three-dimensional backlit cityscape above the scoreboard features the Charlotte skyline. This uses a 360° projection system which allows the skyline to change and feature graphics such as airplanes and fireworks, and night-time or daytime skies. Photograph by Mark Steinkamp, courtesy Daktronics.

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To those who advocated publication of the book – Jaime Aldaya, Eddie Hole, Geraint John, Caroline Mallinder,

Ian Mudd and Eric Taylor

And to those who inspired us to write it – Colin Dexter, Les Hackett, Kisho Kurokawa, Peter Rice,

Ron Taylor and David Whyte

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Sports Facilities and Technologies

Peter Culley and John Pascoe

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First published 2009 in the USA and Canada by Routledge

270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA

Simultaneously published by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Culley, Peter.

Sports facilities and technologies / Peter Culley & John Pascoe.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Sports facilities. 2. Physical fitness centers. 3. Recreation centers. 4. Public architecture. I. Pascoe, John, MCAM

II. Title.

GV405.C85 2009 725’.8043—dc22

2008052779

ISBN10: 0-415-45868-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-87602-4 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-45868-9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-87602-2 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

ISBN 0-203-87602-4 Master e-book ISBN

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9 Stadiums

79

10 Indoor facilities for outdoor sports

93

Part Two

Facilities Development

99

11 Building regulations

101

12 Health and safety

107

13 Feasibility, site selection and investigation

111

14 Masterplanning, transportation and infrastructure

119

15 Building form, structure and facades

127

16 Indoor sports surfaces

137

17 Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning

147

18 Electrical installation

155

19 Facilities management

161

20 Continuous improvement

167

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c o n t e n t s

Part Three

Technologies

¹⁷⁵

21 Materials

¹⁷⁷

22 Acoustics

¹⁸⁷

23 Lighting

¹⁹³

24 Communications

²⁰¹

25 Safety and security

²⁰⁹

26 Accessibility

²¹⁵

27 Controls and automation

²²¹

28 Sustainability

²²⁷

29 Refurbishment

²³⁵

30 Recycling

²³⁹

Conclusion

²⁴³

Appendix I

Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) MasterFormat

²⁴⁴

Appendix II

Indoor sports: space planning drawings

²⁴⁶

References 257

Index 267

Image credits 278

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We’ve written this book for everyone who shares our enthusiasm for the universal language of sport and its power to break down barriers. We have also written it specifically for professionals, researchers and students in the fields of sports development, sport engineering and technology, sports management, sport history, architecture, the built environment, construction and building engineering design.

Sport is global, so we’ve written for a global audience. To demonstrate points that we make we have, however, had to refer to specific regulations, codes of practice, standards and specifications and to their implementation in specific projects. In such cases we’ve quoted attribute units and values in local use, with common equivalents in brackets, for example ‘1in (25.4mm)’.

Project examples which are valid for a particular application in a specific time and place are not, of course, necessarily appropriate or even legal in another time and place.

Each of the following chapters could be a book in its own right. So we’ve compiled a chapter-by-chapter References list (printed at the end of the book) to help readers pursue their further interests in each chapter’s theme.

This is a big book which covers a wide range of subjects. We have checked and cross-checked its content continuously. We apologise in advance for any errors. If you should see an error then please do let us know. We will be very grateful to you and will make the correction for any future editions.

Finally, one of the advocates of publishing this book said,

‘Hopefully it will be readable’. This is what we want too, and what we have striven to achieve. Whether or not we have suc- ceeded is for you to judge.

Peter and John April 2009

Preface

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Foreword by Professor Geraint John

I have been asked to write a foreword to this book, and I am pleased to do so.

The range of the work is enormous, witnessed by the long list of references at the end of the book. It is a kaleidoscope of simple explanations, contrasted with detailed technical information, early historical background leading to present and future trends, and small facilities contrasting with large scale Olympic developments. It is clearly strong on engineering and material matters, bearing in mind the background of the authors.

I asked myself which readership will find this book the most valuable: I think the answer is that there is something to learn here for all those interested in sports facilities. It is a book to both be useful for reference and also to dip into.

Peter Culley and John Pascoe are to be commended on the work they have produced.

Geraint John*

* p r o f e s s o r g e r a i n t j o h n

Senior Advisor to Populous (formerly HOK Sport Architecture) Honorary Life President of the International Union of Architects

(UIA) Programme Sport and Leisure

Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire

Visiting Professor to the Universidad Camilo Jose Cela, Madrid Former Visiting Professor: Sport Building Design at the University

of Luton

Council Member of the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Former Chief Architect and Head of the Technical Unit for Sport

at the GB Sports Council

Member of the UKTI Global Sports Projects Sector Advisory Group

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Peter Culley is an independent engineer whose work ranges from housing to closing-roof stadiums. His specialist experience in sports facilities design dates back to 1990 when, as a structural advisory engineer with British Steel, he was asked to take a leading role in marketing the steel industry’s products to developers and designers of the new generation of all-seater stadiums. This involved him in most of the stadium and sports ground redevelop- ments in the UK during the 1990s. It also made him a valued member of the international stadium design community. Before joining British Steel in 1978, Peter worked with British Rail. Here, he is best known for the reconstruction of London Bridge Station in the 1970s, with its then innovative NODUS space frame roof structures. Before London Bridge, Peter had, since 1958, designed, detailed and supervised road and rail bridges in concrete and steel, including major bridge and retaining wall works for the new M25 motorway.

John Pascoe is a content editor with Electrocomponents plc, responsible for thermal management, lighting, heatsinks, development hardware, electrostatic, cleanroom and test and measurement products. He previously worked with Arup (1979–2002), Constrado (1978–79) and British Steel (1972–77). John is the former editor of the magazines Tubular Structures, Corus Group/British Steel 1977–

2002, Profils Creux en Acier – The Hollow Section – Stahlhohlprofile, CIDECT 1979–86 and Building with Steel, Constrado – BCSA 1978–79. He worked with Frank Pyle, Trevor Slydel and other members of the team which produced the CAD Good Practice Guide (1994). His additional published works include papers and publications on cladding systems, space frames and stainless steels.

John is a member of the Construction Writers Association, Illinois, and the Council for British Archaeology. As a member of Hercules Wimbledon AC, he qualified for and competed in the European and Commonwealth Games Trials held at the Gateshead International Stadium in June 1982.

Peter and John co-wrote more than 30 publications on stadiums and sports facilities in the 1990s. In 2002 they assembled, from friends and colleagues, some of the world’s leading specialists in key aspects of stadium design to work together to produce the first book on stadium engineering. That book, Stadium Engineering, was published in 2005 and was the winner of a 2005 Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) Award, 2005 Communicator Award and 2005 Society for Technical Communication (STC) Trans- European Award (sole UK winner).

This book is the result of inputs from hundreds of people. Most organisations and individuals involved are named in the text, photo credits or copyright references. Additionally, the authors and publisher would like to thank the following: Richard Hughes (Archaeologist – Mohenjo-Daro Site), Daniel Imade, Pauline Shirley (Arup), Cindy Carrasquilla (Charlotte Bobcats), Michelle Wright (Corus Group), Kathryn Harvey (Dalhousie University), John Martin (De Montfort University), Michael Burns, Mike Butt, John Evans, Peter Hare (Electrocomponents), Peter Milburn (Griffith University), Kerry Slatkoff (Ketchum Sports Network), Julie Atkinson (Marl), Terry Paine (Monodraught), Judy Nokes (Office of Public Sector Information), Mark Magner (Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University), Sally Graham, Marcus Kingwell (PMP Consult), Laura Whitton (RIBA), Craig Braham, Carl Chambers, Shereen Roache (Serco), Josh Wheeler (Wheeler Electric).

The following firms made substantial contributions to the book content:

Arup (www.arup.com)

•

Corus Group (www.corusgroup.com)

•

Electrocomponents plc (www.electrocomponents.com)

•

Commissioned photographs: Simon J Atkinson www.sjatkinson.com

Original drawings: Peter Culley

The authors Acknowledgements

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‘Sport is a universal language. At its best it can bring people together, no matter what their origin, background, religious beliefs or economic status. And when young people par- ticipate in sports or have access to physical education, they can experience real exhilaration even as they learn the

ideals of teamwork and tolerance.’

Kofi Annan,

New York City, 5 November 2004

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The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 covers different types of sports facilities, sports provision within buildings, the signifi- cance of sports facilities in urban developments and the exciting possibilities of sports-led urban regeneration. Part 2 covers sports facilities planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance. Part 3 is about the technologies that are making such facilities increasingly desirable places to be. While Part 1 is sports-specific, the content of Parts 2 and 3 is of wider application and implication.

The book is written against a background of major and rapid changes – in the UK alone during the period 2006–08 new building regulations, wiring regulations and construction (design and

management) regulations were implemented. In addition to meeting new requirements, sports facilities designers and managers everywhere are taking advantage of emerging and developing technologies to achieve comfort and delight for building users, while at the same time working to achieve ever-more stringent energy-efficiency targets.

This book is about sports facilities and their adaptation to the needs and aspirations of modern societies. We have chosen to use local examples from different parts of the world, to demonstrate ways of addressing global issues, rather than incorporate in our content sports facilities project case studies of a general nature.

Introduction

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Part ONE

Sports and Facilities

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1.1

Western High School, Washington DC: girls’ basketball (circa 1899)

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Western High School and Warfield Gymnasium

Basketball was known as ‘basket ball’ – two words – until 1921.

It was designed to meet the need for an indoor sport that would help male athletes keep fit through the winter months. Its inventor James Naismith, a Canadian by birth and a man of strong religious convictions, devised the sport to ‘assist youth to discover moral as well as physical strength through education’. The first game was played between two nine-man teams using a soccer ball at Springfield, Massachusetts, on 12 December 1891. Features of basket ball included passing the ball (rather than dribbling), tar- geting high-level goals (to prevent collisions) and using peach baskets for the goals (which necessitated the use of ladders to remove the ball from them). Containment baskets were replaced by metal rings with drop-through netting and, when basketball became an arena sport, the backboard was introduced to prevent delays in play due to over-thrown balls landing in the first tiers of spectator seating. Today’s rings are often powder-coated solid steel and backboards may be in plywood or in newer materials, such as reinforced polypropylene resin.

Soon after Naismith invented the game for men, Senda Berenson, Director of Physical Training at Smith College, Massachusetts, introduced it to women. The first women’s game was played at Smith College on 22 March 1893. The nine-woman teams wore heavy woollen uniforms covering all of their bodies except for the face, neck and hands. On the day of the game, the armory (drill hall) windows were guarded by women wielding sticks (to keep men away). The only two men present were Walter E Magee, a physical education instructor who had seen basket ball played at

Springfield, and Dr Thomas Wood, Director of Women’s Physical Education at Stanford. Female spectators were also discouraged because doctors said they could be rendered hysterical by seeing women exerting themselves playing a men’s sport.

The earliest photograph of a women’s basket ball game that we know of was taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864–1952) at Western High School, Washington DC, around 1899.

C h a p t e r 1

Sports halls

1.2

Naval Base Ventura County, Port Hueneme, California:

Warfield Gymnasium (2005)

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Indoor sport Playing area (m) Playing area (ft) Ht min.: m (ft) Ht max.: m (ft)

Aikido 9 × 9 29’6” × 29’6” 7 (23’) 7.5 (25’)

Archery (six archers) 22 × 7.5 72’2” × 24’6” 3.6 (11’8”) 4.6 (15’1”)

Athletics (200m track) 87.65 × 43.18 287’6” × 141’8” – –

Badminton 13.4 × 6.1 44’ × 20’ 7.6 (25’) 8.4 (27’5”)

Baseball 8.2 × 8.2 (11.6 across) 27’ × 27’ (38’ across) – –

Basketball 26 × 14 85’3” × 46’ 7 (23’) –

BMX (track Length) 300 to 400 984’ to 1312’ – –

Bocce 3–4 × 23–30.5 10–13’ × 76–100’ – –

Bowls: carpet 9.1–10.1 × 1.83–1.98 29’10”–33’1” × 6’–6’6” – –

Bowls: indoor level green 36.5 × 4.6 min. 119.7’ × 15’ min. – –

Bowls: short mat 12.2–13.75 × 1.83 40’–45’ × 6’ – –

Bowling: 10-pin 22.9 × 1 (lane) 77’10” × 3’3” (lane) – –

Boxing 6.1 × 6.1 20’ × 20’ 7 (23’9”) –

Cricket (six-a-side) 29.12–33.12 × 7.32–8 95’6”–109’ × 24’–26’2” 4.5 (14.8’) 5 (16’5”)

Curling 44 × 4.3–4.75 146’ × 14’2” –15’7” – –

Cycling (track length) 133 to 500 436’ to 1640’ – –

Fencing 14 × 2 46’ × 6’6” – –

Football (soccer) five-a-side 25–50 × 16.5–35 82–164’ × 54’1”–114’10” – –

Futsal 25–31 × 15–16 82’–101’7” × 49’–52’2” – –

Go-kart 30.5 × 30.5 min 100’ × 100’ min – –

Gymnastics 32–36 × 22.5–26 105’–118’1” × 73’8”–85’3” 6.7 (22’) 7.6 (25’)

Handball 40 × 20 131’2” × 65’6” 7.6 (24’9”) 9 (29’6”)

High jump (pit) 3 × 4.3 10’ × 14’ – –

Hockey 40 × 20 131’2” × 65’6” 7.6 (25’) –

Ice hockey/ice skating 61 × 26 200’ × 85’3” – –

Jai alai 54 × 15.24 176’ × 50’ 12.2 (40’) –

Judo 16 × 16 52’2” × 52’2” 7 (23’) 7.5 (25’)

Karate 8 × 8 26’1” × 26’1” 7 (23’) 7.5 (25’)

Kendo 11 × 10 36’ × 32’9” 7 (23’) 7.5 (25’)

Korfball 31–40 × 16–20 101’7”–131’2” × 52’4”–65’7” 7 (23’) 9 (29’6”)

Lacrosse (men’s) 46–48 × 18–24 150’11”–157’6” × 59’1”–78’9” – –

Lacrosse (women’s) 29–42 × 15–21 95’2”–137’10” × 49’3”–68’11” – –

Netball 30.5 × 15.2 100’ × 50’ 7 (23’) 7.6 (25’)

Pool 2.7 × 1.4 8’9” × 4’4” – –

Pole vault (pit) 3.7 × 4.3 12’ × 14’ (min) – –

Rackets 9.14 × 18.28 30’ × 60’ 9.14 (30’) –

Rowing (tank) 13–18 approx 42’8” × 59’1” 9 (29’6”) –

Small-bore pistol shooting 25 × 6.4 82’ × 21’ 3.6 (11’8”) 4.6 (15’1”)

Small-bore rifle shooting 25 × 4.2 82’ × 13’ 8” 3.6 (11’8”) 4.6 (15’1”)

Snooker and billiards 3.7 × 1.9 12’ × 6’ – –

Squash: hardball 9.7 × 5.6 32’ × 18’5” 5.49 (18’) 5.49 (18’)

Squash: softball 9.7 × 6.4 32’ × 21’ 5.4 (17’7”) 5.7 (18’7”)

Squash: doubles 13.7 × 7.6 45’ × 25’ 5.49 (18’) 5.49 (18’)

Swingball and tetherball 6 diameter 20’ diameter 3 (pole) 10 (pole)

Table tennis 7–14 × 5–7 22’9”–45’9” × 16’4”–22’9” 2.7 (8’8”) 4 (13’1”)

Tchouk-ball 20–40 × 15–20 65’7”–131’2” × 49’–65’7” 15 (49’2”) 20 (65’7”)

Tennis 23.8 × 8.2 78’ × 27’ 9 (29’)* 10.67 (35’)*

Trampolining 5.2 × 3 17’ × 10’ 6.7 (22’) 9.1 (29’8”)

Triple jump (from take-off) 21 (min) × 2.75 68’10” (min) × 9’ – –

Volleyball 18 × 9 59’ × 29’6” 7 (23’) 9.1 (29’8”)

Volleyball: beach (indoor) 16 × 8 minimum 52’4” × 26’1” minimum 7 (23’) –

Weight training 4 × 3 or more 13’ × 10’ or more 3.5 (11’6”) –

Wrestling 12 × 12 39’4” × 39’4” 7 (23’9”) –

* Tennis court: height 9m (29’) at net (club) and 10.67m (35’) at net (championship); 5.75m (18’10”) at baseline; 4m (13’1”) minimum at back.

Note: the table is a simplification so there are inconsistencies and omissions, e.g. in some cases playing areas only are quoted and in some cases playing areas plus mandatory run-off areas are quoted. For cue sports the critical issue of the height of the lighting over the table is not addressed.

The References section at the end of the book includes sources of detail on sports playing areas.

Table 1.1 Playing areas of popular indoor sports

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s p o r t s h a l l s

Interestingly, in the 1920s, Johnston would go on to photograph architecture, driven by a passion to document buildings and gardens which were falling into disrepair or were about to be redeveloped and lost. (Johnston was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects for her work in preserving old and endangered buildings.)

What intrigues us about the Western High School photograph is that the girls of 1899 are enjoying a virtually identical sporting experience to that of the girls in the second photograph, taken in 2005, where All-Marine Telita Huffman (left) goes up high with Army’s Chelsea Bryant. Major developments in cloth- ing and footwear have clearly taken place in the intervening 100 years and you may have spotted a significant difference in the two venues – Western High is of conventional construction and Warfield Gymnasium has an all-steel structure because it is on board Naval Base Ventura County, Port Hueneme, California.

These two photographs demonstrate the universality and exhilaration of sport, which Kofi Annan articulates in the quota- tion in the prelim pages (see p. x). They also give an inkling of the importance of sports facilities and technologies to sports development, which is the theme of our book.

Indoor sports facilities

The authors define a sports hall as an enclosure capable of containing a designated indoor sport or permutation of indoor sports.

The size of a sports hall will be arrived at by balancing the aspira- tion (for sports and users to be accommodated) with the budget.

Because sport is a fast-growing and fast-changing business, designers of sports facilities have to consider flexibility in use and potential for future extendibility. Table 1.1 gives the playing areas of some popular indoor sports that the client may wish to accommodate. Heights quoted are clear heights. Although maximum clear heights may be specified by sports governing bodies, in practice they may usually be greater, determined by the need of principal height-critical sports hall activities (such as badminton, tennis and gymnastics).

Towards enclosure

Most of the sports listed in Table 1.1 were conceived as outdoor sports. Badminton is now one of the world’s most popular indoor sports. The modern indoor game was launched in 1873 at Badminton House in Gloucestershire, home of the Duke of Beaufort, after having gained popularity as an upper-class, English country house amusement in the 1860s. The 19^th century game derived from the 18^th century games of poona (British India) and battledore and shuttlecock (England), but similar games were played in the ancient world in Greece, Egypt, India, China, Japan and Siam.

The other principal indoor court sports are basketball and volleyball and these sports, amazingly, were invented within 16km (10 miles) of each other. Basketball, we have seen, was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, and volleyball (then known as Mintonette) was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895.

There is a saying in the UK that ‘things happen in threes’ and it is interesting to note that, although squash in the USA is generally accepted to date from 1891 in Philadelphia, America’s first squash court was built by St Paul’s School at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1883. It is also interesting to note that Mintonette (volleyball) was so named because of its association with badminton, which was designed to be a game involving less physical contact than basketball and incorporated not only aspects of badminton and basketball but also elements of baseball, tennis and handball.

(Mintonette became Volleyball when the ball was perceived to be

‘volleyed’ back and forth over the net.)

Enclosing volumes for individual court sports has a much longer tradition than enclosing volumes for multifunctional sporting use. The King George VI Sports Hall at Lilleshall was built in 1955 and acclaimed as the first indoor sports hall in the UK. The first community sports hall in the UK was opened at Harlow, Essex, in 1964. School sports halls were integral to the UK school building programme of the 1960s and more than one-third of the programme’s expenditure was on consortium-based, industria- lised school-building systems. This placed a large proportion of the new UK schools and their sports halls among the first non- industrial buildings to express all the character and virtues of structural steel; a fact which was recognised internationally. The design of steel framed schools in the UK in the 1960s was on a par with the beautiful but austere works of Mies van der Rohe and his architectural school at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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Many of the world’s finest sports halls are the focal points of schools and colleges in North America. At Berkeley High School, California, sliding glass walls open between the sports hall and the student union to create a quality space capable of hosting community and school-wide events. At Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, the Ralph S O’Connor Recreation Center has a multi-use sports hall for basketball, volleyball and badminton with a 165m (541’4”), four-lane jogging track, 30ft (9.144m) climbing wall and four racquetball courts (two of which are convertible to squash courts) together with weight room, fitness centre and three multi- purpose rooms. The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) recognises outstanding sports facilities in the USA through its annual awards scheme. Winners in recent years have included Western Washington University, Wade King Student Recreation Center, which has a three-court sports hall with elevated running track, multi-purpose activity court, locker rooms and multi- purpose rooms for aerobics, martial arts, yoga and fencing.

Today a typical ‘standard’ sized sports hall is approximately 33m (108’3”) long × 18m (59’) wide × 7.6m (24’11”) high (594m²/6387ft²) and can accommodate four badminton courts in parallel. Badminton courts have traditionally been used as a modular yardstick because of the popularity of the sport and its demanding functional requirements, which include lighting, roof

structure and height, background wall and roof colours (to aid shuttle visibility) and air velocity. A large sports hall would be considered to be in the order of 36.5m (119’9”) × 32m (105’) × 9.1m (29’10”) high (1168m²/12,574ft²).

Roof structure

Sports halls are built in a wide variety of materials and configurations. Materials include structural steel, concrete, prestressed concrete, timber and membranes and cables (in lightweight structure solutions). Configurations include beams and trusses, space frames, stressed skins, rigid frames, folded plates, shells, arches, vaults and domes, cable-stayed structures and other types of lightweight structure.

While arches and domes are appropriate for the hosting of stadium and arena-type events, a rectangular or square plan sports hall is likely to be more efficient for accommodating permutations of the rectangular and square plan playing areas listed in Table 1.1. A constant height, capable of accommodating planned activities with the greatest clearance requirements, will also optimise flexibility in use. The box-like, repetitious solution has led to the

1.3

Hillsborough Leisure Centre (1991)

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widespread use of structural steel for sports hall roof structures over the past 40 years. Such structures are workshop-prefabricated for bolting or welding together quickly on site. They offer not only the means of creating the requisite flexibility in use, but also inherent extendibility.

The main factors affecting sports hall cost are shape, size and standard of finishes. Large halls cost more because they have greater height and wider spans, and use more construction material. Sometimes, the seemingly prohibitive costs of larger structures merit closer scrutiny. For example, high strength steels can be used to create wider spans. These steels derive from the development of micro-alloy theories in modern metallurgy, combined with advanced controlled-rolling practices in the steel industry.

The benefits of using such steels can be dramatic. Let us take, as an example, an increase in yield strength from 355MPa to 460MPa (steel grades S355M and S460M as defined in European Structural Steel Standard EN10025:2004), see Table 1.2.

In the above example, a weight saving of 30% and an overall cost saving of 14% are achieved by choosing the higher grade steel over the lower grade steel to perform the same function (current calculations suggest that material savings in the range 23.3–40% are achieved by specifying high strength steels as opposed to low alloy steels and carbon steels). Higher grade steels

are widely used in the constructional steelwork industry. Their use reduces energy inputs and increases the value in service of each unit of output, placing these steel products at the forefront of global initiatives in sustainable building development.

Unprecedented demand for sports and leisure centres coincided with the development of computerised analytical techniques in structural engineering design and the introduction by steel manufacturers of high yield strength structural steel sections. The conjunction of these three factors promoted a rapid growth of interest in the development of two-layer grid space frame systems for sports hall developments. These systems can transmit the forces resulting from roof dead weight and superimposed loading out of the roof structure, not in the usual single direction (normally along the shortest span) but in two directions. Because of this ability, such space frames can be used to create efficiently the types of wide-span roofs necessary to produce large column-free floor areas. Reducing or eliminating the need for intermediate building columns increases the flexibility and utility value of space within leisure centres. From the 1960s steel space frame roofs have been used to cover many physical activities requiring large areas (and often large associated volumes) of uninterrupted space.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), the inventor of the telephone, experimented with space truss structures made of octahedral and tetrahedral units in the early years of the 20^th century. The first commercially available space frame system was MERO, introduced in Germany in the 1940s. Subsequent systems included TM Truss (Japan), Abba Space (South Africa), Octetruss

Steel grade S355M S460M

Quantity 1000 tonnes 700 tonnes

Materials cost, US$ 660,000 610,000

Fabrication cost, US$ 1,100,000 875,000

Anti-corrosion treatment, US$ 260,000 260,000

Construction cost, US$ 175,000 175,000

Total cost, US$ 219,500,000 192,000,000

Saving in materials quantity 30%

Saving in total cost 14%

1.4

Clydebank Leisure Centre (1994)

Table 1.2 Steel grade cost and strength comparisons

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s p o r t s a n d f a c i l i t i e s

(USA), Triodetic (Canada), Tridirectionelle SDC, Tridimatic, Pyramitic, Unibat (France) and Space Deck (UK). More recently developed systems have included the Conder Harley System 80 and Space Deck ‘Multiframe’. These systems comprise specially developed joints used in combination with metal connectors. The NODUS system, using cast joints and structural hollow section connectors, was introduced in the UK in the 1970s. It was used to roof many sports and leisure facilities. The authors have chosen the NODUS joint as their demonstration space frame joint (Chapter 7) because one (JP) was once the NODUS Marketing Planner and the other (PC) used NODUS in his best-known

project, the redevelopment of London Bridge station. Because space frames have two-layer grids, lighting, heating and ventilation systems can readily and accessibly be supported within the roof depth. They have also been used very successfully with space partitioning systems to isolate different playing areas under the common ‘umbrella’.

1.5

Sports Hall for Acrobats, Berlin (2007)

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Walls

External wall claddings for sports halls may include colour-coated steel. Where profiled metal is used, it looks better when run hori- zontally. Cedarboard cladding is cheaper than metal cladding and requires no maintenance. External windows and door frames should be in powder-coated aluminium, galvanised steel, UPVC or hardwood.

Internal wall surfaces should be flush and without projections or sharp corners. They must be capable of withstanding impact from building users’ bodies, sports equipment and projectiles.

They must be able to support any sports hall equipment that may be installed at the outset or that could be introduced in the future (sports hall fittings include wall-mounted or ceiling- mounted hinged basketball goals, roof-mounted spotting rig for gymnasts, tracked division netting, sockets with flush-fitted cover plates, pulley-mounted net bags and spotting rig ducts).

Wall finishes should be matt, easily cleaned and non-abrasive to a height of at least 3m above the floor (above 3m a sound absorptive material capable of withstanding ball impact may be used). Higher standards of material and acoustic quality may be necessary if the facility is to perform wider amenity or assembly functions.

Floors

Commonly used flooring materials for sports halls include semi- sprung hardwood, PVC carpet with chipboard or plywood underlay, PVC with foam backing and rubbers or plastics in sheet form or laid in situ. Semi-sprung beech, beech veneer and various composition and synthetic surfaces meet impact and energy absorbing criteria defined in British Standard 7044 (Part 4). The choice will depend principally on the nature of the activities involved. For example, the surface must offer true and predictable bounce (joints will not be permissible if they affect playing performance – hardwood surfaces must be laid with support under all board joints). Surfaces should generally be non-slip, but the designer should beware because some sports, such as football and tennis, require a degree of ‘slide’. All floors should be wear-resistant and easy to maintain.

Some will have to cater for localised heavy loading and the move- ment of heavy equipment across them. Floor colour should contrast with the walls and be of 40–50% reflectance value.

No official sports flooring standards currently exist in North America. The German DIN series is the most widely used sports flooring standard in the USA (DIN V 18032-2, now superseded by EN 14904: 2006), see Chapter 16.

Heating and ventilating

Heating and ventilating requirements vary according to activity and season. Winter temperatures of 13–22°C are suitable for most activities. Air renewal should be four times per hour with a performance of at least 50m³per hour (comparatives are three changes per hour for a storeroom and 10–12 changes for changing and shower rooms). Sports halls may use warm air or radiant heating, or a combination of both. Warm air heaters are well-suited to low air change rates. Radiant heaters provide instant heat at the point of need, without having to raise the ambient temperature. This makes them suitable for localised heating or for overall heating in those parts of a sportscentre with high ceilings or high ventilation rates. Ventilation openings such as windows, louvres, fans and mechanical inlets/outlets must be located in order to avoid draughts on sports participants and other building users.

Lighting

The New Buildings Institute has established some excellent fun- damental approaches to achieving energy-effective sports hall design:

‘Use daylight as a primary light source. There is ample evidence

•

that daylight makes people happier, healthier and more produc- tive. It’s also free and environmentally friendly. Diffuse skylights, monitors and north-facing clerestories are good choices.

Use light-reflective surfaces to maximize brightness perception

•

while minimizing glare and energy use. In a good design, the building should generally be the light fixture. In other words, paint the ceiling and walls white. Use colour bands for school colours.

Select appropriate target light levels. High school facilities

•

require higher light levels during competitive events than those of elementary or middle schools.

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Use luminaires with some uplight to provide some brightness

•

on the ceiling.

Light the competition area to a higher level than the spectator

• areas.

Use occupancy sensors to ensure that lighting is not energized

•

except when needed.

Provide manual bi-level switching capacity, at a minimum, in

•

all areas. This is a requisite criterion in the USA to qualify for

energy-efficiency (Energy Policy Act 2005) tax deductions. This will also facilitate multiple uses within the space, ranging from basketball tournaments to the school sock hop.

Use automatic daylight harvesting controls that either switch

•

some lighting off or continuously dim as daylight becomes available.’

(New Buildings Institute 2006) 1.6

Indoor triple jump

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Equipment storage

Planners and designers of sports halls should allow a minimum of 12.5% of the floor area for sports equipment storage. If the hall has to double up as a community resource, then the additional need to store furniture will significantly increase the proportion of the building that must be allocated to storage. Mats require a separate one-hour fire-rated storage enclosure, vented to the external air and equipped with a smoke detection system.

Upgrading existing sports halls

The success of sports halls depends on their ability to successfully accommodate specific sports or permutations of sports. Where the current need is for a multifunctional facility, an existing sports hall may be considered inadequate. It may be possible to extend the length of an existing facility to increase its capacity, but it is not often possible to increase building width or height economi- cally. Adding ancillary buildings to an inadequate principal building simply multiplies the number of inadequate buildings on site.

Essentially, if existing facilities are too small, then they need to be replaced. In 2006 sportscotland published The National Audit of Scotland’s Sports Facilities, a review of 6000 facilities, which concluded that changing patterns of demand suggested facilities should be replaced rather than refurbished. Maintenance of the country’s stock of indoor sports facilities was calculated to be costing £78 million per annum.

Back to square one

On 25 June 2008 we were chatting with our publisher, Fran Ford, about sporting derivations of phrases like ‘for love or money’.

Fran said that the phrase ‘back to square one’ had a sporting derivation too. As we had thought it derived from board games like ‘snakes and ladders’ we were intrigued, especially as this is a phrase in common use in the construction industry. ‘Back to square one’ pre-dates the TV era, going back to early BBC radio commentaries. It refers to the division of a sports pitch into eight notional squares, which enabled radio commentators to convey more clearly to listeners the progress of the ball around the field of play. The Radio Times referred to the practice in an issue dated January 1927 and prints of the pitch diagram still exist. Sound recordings also survive, in which a second commentator calls out square numbers as the ball moves from square to square. There is, however, no surviving recording in which the phrase ‘back to square one’ is actually spoken, but we like to believe it was.

1.7

Listeners’ plan for first live radio commentary on a football match

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2.1

Jai Alai Hall, Havanna, Cuba (circa 1904)

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Introduction

The ancient and universal practice of hitting a ball with a closed fist, as in Fives, was developed by the Aztecs into the sport introduced by Hernan Cortés into Andalucía as pelota (ball), which became known by the Basques as jai alai (pronounced ‘high lie’).

Jai alai spread subsequently to Mexico, Cuba and the USA, gain- ing a reputation as the fastest game in the world. Other variations of ‘handball’ had evolved by the mid-12^th century in France into

‘le paume’ (the palm of the hand), which developed into jeu de paume, real tennis, royal tennis and – well – tennis. In the early 19^th century a variation of racket sport was invented in the Fleet Prison, London, when the inmates – mainly debtors – began using their limited space to hit balls against the prison’s walls, of which there were many. This new game, rackets, found its way into the English public school system. Pupils at Harrow discovered that a punctured rackets ball ‘squashed’ on impact with the wall. The resulting ‘slow ball’ meant that the players had to run faster and harder to return the bouncing ball to the front wall, producing a more energetic game with a greater variety of shot-making oppor- tunities. It is this further variation on rackets that led to the world’s first four ‘squash’ courts being built at Harrow School in 1864.

The standard size of squash court was adopted from the dimen- sions of a beautiful 32ft (9.75m) × 21ft (6.4m) court built at the Bath Club, London, for Lord Desborough in the 1920s.

England was, at that time, a perfect launching pad for squash since the British Empire provided the means for the new sport to spread around the globe, often in rather mysterious ways. In British East Africa in the 1930s, at Handeni in Tanzania, a colonial administrator gained authorisation to commission a new ‘court’, knowing that it would be assumed that the application was for a

law court when he was, in fact, building a local squash court. A new squash court at Sumbawanga, Tanzania, lay unfinished until the colonial administration arrested a known criminal, who was also a mason, and set him to work on the plastering. The birth of squash in the USA is normally dated at 1891, when the Philadelphia Racquet Club built a court and instituted a championship.

However, in the USA a harder rubber ball had been developed to cope with local low or rapidly dropping temperatures, and this was found to be better suited for use on a narrower 18½ft (5.6m) court. Squash played on the 18½ft wide court with a hard ball was the only form of squash played in the USA until the mid- 1980s, when growth of the sport internationally led to some 21ft courts being built in the USA and to the ‘international’ soft ball being used on both types of court.

C h a p t e r 2

Squash courts

This chapter is dedicated to Raju Chainani, the leading and irreplaceable squash journalist, who died suddenly in Mumbai on 31 August 2001, aged 49

2.2

San Diego Squash, Sorrento Mesa, California: Junior Squash Clinic (2007)

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Squash is an exceptional promoter of cardio-respiratory fitness, muscle endurance, strength and speed, flexibility and a low per- centage of body fat. Heart rate rises in the first few minutes of play to 80–85% of maximum. The sport is today played in 140 countries by more than fifteen million people on more than 50,000 courts.

The sport’s governing body, the World Squash Federation (WSF), has 118 national associations in membership.

The court

The WSF publishes a specification which ‘defines recommended standards for Singles & Doubles Squash courts for the International Game of Squash; referred to in North America as “Softball”

Squash’. The aims of the specification are:

to ensure compatibility of recommended standards for courts

•

from one country to another, and

to guide manufacturers, builders and designers as to suitable

•

standards of squash court construction and design.

The specification defines the basic characteristics of squash courts without reference to materials or methods of construction.

Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC)

Air-conditioning provides air circulation, cooling and dehumidi- fication appropriate to playing squash, but whether air-conditioning or mechanical ventilation is used, HVAC equipment should be fitted flush so that there are no intrusions of fans, thermostats or ducts into the playing volume.

Court ceiling and lighting

The court ceiling should be made of an impact-resistant and sound- absorbent material to take the force of stray balls and to reduce reverberation. It should have a plain matt finish and be white or a light colour against which the players can sight the ball easily.

All lighting should be flush with the ceiling and no part of any lighting fixture can be lower than 5.64m (18ft 6in) above court floor level. Shadows are unacceptable, so lights should be dis- persed throughout the ceiling in order to illuminate all parts of the court equally. Many squash courts are lit by fluorescent tubes, which have a tendency to flicker. Other options include incan- descent bulbs and metal halide lights.

2.3

Yale University, New Haven: Payne Whitney Gymnasium – Brady Squash Center (2005)

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s q u a s h c o u r t s

The court floors

Floors must be hard, smooth, true, non-slip and able to absorb moisture. A lightly sprung timber floor is appropriate. It should be constructed of light-coloured wood of, or similar in hue to, English beech or Canadian rock maple. Boards should be tongue- and-groove, in the maximum possible lengths, and laid parallel to the side walls (not transversely). Floors should be sanded but, ideally, not painted, varnished, oiled or polished (which can cause players to slip). They should be swept regularly using a V-mop, which has an impregnated cotton head that attracts dust and rubber particles from the squash balls. Rubber or other flexible material is used under the timber to give the floor the ‘spring’ or

‘give’. The playboard or ‘tin’, which extends across the bottom of the front wall, may be of metal or metal-faced plywood.

The court walls

In squash, the court wall surface is crucial. It must be true, hard, smooth and plumb. It must be able to withstand impact and to absorb some condensation. Walls can be constructed in brick or concrete block, or in other solid and non-yielding material such as plastic or reinforced panels. The most common construction is brickwork, carefully bonded to white plaster that is finished with special squash court paint. The wall has to be able to cope with both ball and racket impacts. A squash ball may weigh only around 24g but it can reach speeds of up to 160km/h (99.4mph), imposing considerable force on the wall construction.

The court back wall is preferably made of glass, with a door in the centre of the wall. Such glass is a special product and should be sourced from a recognised supplier. The back wall does not have to be in glass but this is preferred in order to enable spectators to watch the game. If the back wall is in plaster, then the door should be set flush with the plaster. Door handles and hinges should be recessed to eliminate protrusions.

For match play there should be provision for a referee to stand above the centre of the back wall, with an unimpeded view of the court. (It is interesting to note that many early squash courts had no door – they were accessed, usually at the rear left hand corner, by a counter-weighted ladder pivoted at the top. Once on court, players pushed the ladder up, where it stayed because of the counterweight. After the match, the ladder was lowered

by pulling on a rope hanging down just below the top of the rear wall.)

The critical nature of squash wall construction was demon- strated in the refurbishment of the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London, which was completed between 2003 and 2004. The RAC Club had been designed by Mewès & Davies, following their design of the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. It was built in 1911 and is one of London’s first steel-framed buildings. The consulting engineers for the 2003–04 refurbishment, Faber Maunsell, were told that the squash court walls had been in need of constant repair due to cracking. They assumed that there was a problem with plaster and backing brickwork. What they found was that the building’s original engineer, Sven Bylander, whose firm would become Bylander Waddell, had designed the courts for fives, with brick walls faced in voided concrete and lined with teak. This wall design eliminated noise from the adjacent shooting gallery. At some point in the building’s history, the teak linings were removed to facilitate change in use of the courts from fives to squash. As a result the courts were being used for a purpose for which they had not been designed and, consequently, they were taken down and rebuilt (with the exception of one wall which English Heritage wished to retain in the reconstruction). It is interesting to note that teak court linings of the RAC Club’s original type probably derive from the use of teak-lined courts by British expatriate rackets and squash enthusiasts working in the timber trade in northern Thailand.

Glass walls

The problem with squash as a sport was that, despite its player appeal, it had very limited spectator appeal. A reasonable crowd for a squash match was around 25–30 people. That changed completely and forever when, in 1977, the UK firm Prospec of Sheffield (now based in Rotherham) developed the world’s first squash court glass wall and installed it – under the name Ellis Pearson – at Sheffield’s Abbeydale Club. This innovation opened up the sport to spectators while retaining the existing levels of playability and safety. Prospec has since installed more than 30,000 Ellis Pearson glass walls around the world for squash, racketball and pelota (which in Europe is another ball and wall sport deriving from jeu de paume).

Prospec went on to develop the world’s first all-glass tournament squash court, which had its inaugural use at the French

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Open in 1984. The design and construction materials of this court facilitate its erection almost anywhere. One of the most spectacular backdrops has been the pyramids at Giza, near Cairo, where a court was erected for the World Open in 1999. The first English Open squash tournament was held at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, from 13–17 August 2003. For this event the Prospec all-glass court provided an unimpeded view of the court, from all around the Crucible auditorium, while at the same time using colour-surface-treated glass and a coloured floor to create opti- mum playing conditions.

Convertible courts

In 2004 McWil Courtwall announced the availability of a new type of glass-walled court with a movable side wall to allow both singles and doubles to be played on the same structure. This development was stimulated by demand from events such as the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, which wanted to stage singles and doubles on the feature court on the same day. The participation of glass fabricator Glaverbel Hardmaas in this initia- tive helped to reduce development time to just six months.

Glass courts

In 2006 Horst Balinsky, founder of the squash court construction company ASB, designed and developed an all-glass squash court floor. Its inaugural use was in an all-glass ASB court erected in

front of the Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad, for the final rounds of the Qatar Airways Challenge (4–9 July 2006) on the Women’s International Squash Players Association (WISPA) World Tour.

Some of the world’s top players were involved in testing the new floor at the ASB headquarters in Germany. The colour of the floor is determined by the colour of the surface under the glass, which creates an advertising opportunity for sponsors.

In 2007 ASB launched – literally – the first all-glass court designed for use on modern cruise ships. This was installed on the uppermost deck of the cruise liner AIDAdiva belonging to AIDA Cruises of Germany, which operates passenger voyages in northern Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond. The court’s glass walls and double-layer, anti-skid, safety-glass floor are mounted on a sprung aluminium base using rubber bearing connections. This solution reduces stress on the players’ joints, while further demonstrating the ‘anytime, anywhere’ advantage that squash can have over other sports. In this case, the transparent enclosure enables passengers to exercise safely while still being part of the ocean-going sightseeing experience. The AIDAbella subsequently became the second of four AIDA line cruise ships to be fitted with an ASB All-Glass-Court.

Squash at sea has, in itself, an intriguing history worthy of greater study. In 1912 the ill-fated Titanic had a squash court located below the bridge at G Deck (court floor) and F Deck (upper court/viewing gallery). The Queen Mary, as originally constructed in 1936, had a gymnasium and squash court on her Sun Deck, to the rear of the vessel. The Queen Mary’s full-size court was sound-proofed from adjacent areas and designed to prevent vibration affecting the deck below. A skylight with dif- fused glass beneath was designed to eliminate the possibility of shadows on court. The spectators’ balcony had a bronze balus- trade, sycamore wall panelling and walnut mouldings.

2.4

Grand Central Station, New York:

Bear Stearns Tournament of Champions (2008)

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Safe-screen

In 1977 BBC TV’s Tomorrow’s World programme featured in model form a transparent-walled squash court developed by the British consulting engineers Campbell, Reith Hill (CRH). In 1982 the partners of CRH decided to design, develop and own a prototype ‘Safe-Screen’ squash court, constructed using Perspex (ICI’s acrylic sheeting) which they believed would provide a preferable material to glass for demountable courts. This innovation paved the way for squash to become a ‘fishbowl’ event, with unique one-way viewing. Its use attracted record crowds for the British Open and World Masters tournaments in 1983.

Continuous improvements in the Safe-Screen court included a transparent ‘tin’ and transparent ‘cutline’, introduced for the Patrick International Squash Festival in 1983, and the introduction of a yellow ball and blue floor for the Davies & Tate British Open in 1984.

Essentially, the Safe-Screen court has four walls of transparent material unobstructed by the steelwork frames along each wall.

At some venues, slender corner columns are required but at others it is possible to suspend the ceiling structure from the roof of the spectator hall, allowing all-round clear vision into the court. The opaque pattern of dots on the Perspex wall material (white dots inside and black dots outside) creates one-way vision, whereby the inside of the court is illuminated and the outside is relatively dark – spectators and TV cameras can see in, but players cannot see out. This combination, together with a uniformly illuminated ceiling and 2000 lux (186 foot-candles) lighting to the court, optimises playing conditions and television coverage. Court ventilation is via a perforated membrane located between the top of the court walls and the illuminated ceiling.

A panel floor system was developed for speed of erection.

Floor panels run the length of the court, to avoid unacceptable lateral joints, and are fully sprung. The floor appears to be and performs as a conventional first-grade maple spanning floor (that can be supplied in a colour such as blue if required). A clear volume of 12.53m × 9.8m × 7.2m (41’ × 32.1’ × 23.6’) is required in which to erect a court measuring 10.73m × 7.38m × 6.9m (35.2’ × 24.2’ × 22.6’).

Mini squash

Mini squash was introduced at the International Squash Rackets Federation (now World Squash Federation) Annual General Meeting in Helsinki in November 1991. It was developed in Australia and New Zealand to introduce the game to youngsters aged from four upwards. It is played with a coated foam ball one-and-a-half times the size of a standard squash ball. The racket is lighter and shorter than standard, with a large face and smaller- diameter grip. Mini squash can be played on a squash court and against any suitable indoor or outdoor wall. Demountable mini courts with clear plastic walls have also been developed for quick erection on flat surfaces.

Beach squash

Beach squash is another variation on the ‘anytime, anywhere’

theme. A beach squash court can be erected on an area 10m × 2.5

Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games: Scotstoun Stadium

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7m, with the requisite 6.5m available height. This type of court is designed to enable it to be easily set up, dismantled and driven to new locations.

Brady Squash Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

In the early 1990s the leaders of amateur squash in the USA adopted international standards of play. US colleges and universi- ties started building international courts for their intercollegiate programmes. The international game necessitated playing to new rules, with a softer ball, on a court wider by 2.5ft (0.762m) and with a tin higher by 2in (50.8mm). At Yale, the main squash facility at Payne Whitney, in the east wing of the fourth floor, had been built to US specifications and lacked space and amenities for spectators of the increasingly popular sport.

Yale alumnus Theodore P Shen ’66 made a donation that enabled a Phase 1 renovation of six new international-standard courts, including one court with three glass walls. In 1997 President Richard C Levin called upon the Skillman Associates, a volunteer organisation of Yale squash, to help raise funds for Phase 2. Fundraising was led by Henry (Sam) Chauncey ’57 and Skillman Associates’ president, William T Ketcham Jr ’41, ’48 LL.B. Their fundraising efforts were completed when alumnus Nicholas F Brady ’52 announced a landmark $3million gift.

Nicholas Brady had lettered in both tennis and squash during his undergraduate years and, as captain of the 1952 varsity squash team, had led Yale to a national championship. Mr Brady went on to receive an MBA from Harvard in 1954 and became Secretary of the US Treasury during both the Reagan and Bush Snr presidencies.

The Brady Squash Center was designed by Ellerbe Becket of Washington DC, working with engineers Flack & Kurtz. Contractor Whiting Turner completed court demolition and reconstruction works by the autumn of 1999. The new squash centre has 15 international singles courts, all with glass back walls and viewing galleries. Three of the courts are exhibition courts. Two of these have three glass walls and the centrepiece of the development – Brady Court – has four glass walls. The first six of the new courts make up the Theodore Shen Wing. The development now includes new coaches’ offices and a team room with video viewing

facilities. It is one of the best squash court centres in the world.

The refurbished facility was officially inaugurated at dedication ceremonies on 22 January 2000. On 18 March 2006, Brady Squash Center also became the permanent home of the newly launched US Squash Hall of Fame.

Squash Tournament of Champions, Grand Central Terminal, New York

The Squash Tournament of Champions at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, New York City, is an annual event that has been held for 14 years (interrupted only by the terminal’s renovation, 1996–98). The tournament was sponsored for five consecutive years, 2004–08, by Bear Stearns (which was sold to JP Morgan Chase in March 2008). In 2008 the Professional Squash Association Tour Super Series Silver event took place 10–16 January. This is the biggest squash spectator event in the world by virtue of its combination of reserved seating (for 500) and free public viewing 2.6

Royal Tennis Court, Falkland Palace, Fife

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s q u a s h c o u r t s

(by around 150,000 Grand Central commuters during terminal week). John Nimick, president of tournament promoter Event Engine, said, ‘Vanderbilt Hall is a spectacular physical setting and, equally importantly, provides the players with the rare opportunity to showcase their sport to the public spectators who pass through Grand Central Terminal’.

Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games

Squash is one of 17 sports chosen for the Games, to be held between 23 July and 3 August 2014. Scotstoun Stadium, which regularly hosts athletics events, will be significantly modernised to host the squash and table tennis events. Scottish Squash, established in 1936, was a strong supporter of Glasgow’s Games bid, seeing success as the opportunity to create a planned and funded legacy which ensures increased and sustained participation in sport.

Historical note: real tennis

The world’s oldest real tennis court still in use is the Falkland Palace Royal Tennis Court, Kingdom of Fife, which was built for King James of Scotland between 1539 and 1541. Masons W & A Allerdice were paid £70 for their construction work. Carpenters under Richard Stewart built the penthouses. James V had limited opportunity to use the new facility because he died, at Falkland Palace, in December 1542.

The oldest enclosed real tennis court still in use is in Manchester.

The Manchester Racquet Club opened in May 1876 in Miller Street, on the corner of Blackfriars Road. In the following year the London and North West Railway Company obtained a com- pulsory purchase order on the new club so that they could build the approach road to Exchange Station. The club formed a limited company, the Manchester Racquet and Tennis Courts Ltd, which built the present club in Blackfriars Road with a real tennis court, racquets court and skittle alley. The new club opened in 1880 and was let to the Manchester Tennis & Racquet Club in return for the net income of the club. In 1914 the shareholders sold the premises to the club for £3000 and the ownership was vested in trustees acting on behalf of the club (an arrangement which con- tinues in 2009). A squash court was added to the facilities in 1926. The 1880 redbrick building, by George T Redmayne, has many original features, including its wooden skittles alley, wine cellar and workshop for the resident professional to make real tennis balls (a skill which originated in 16^th-century France).

2.7

Real tennis: 19th century print

2.8

Manchester Tennis and Racquet Club

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3.1

Western High School, Washington DC: boys’ physical education (circa 1899)

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Introduction

The Latin and English word ‘gymnasium’ is a form of the Greek noun γυμναστήριο ‘gymnasion’, which derives from the Greek adjective γυμνόσ ‘gymnos’ (naked) and the related verb γυμνάζω

‘gymnazein’ (to do physical exercise). The ancient Greeks exer- cised and competed in athletics events naked. This is why ‘gymnasion’, which would logically have meant ‘place to be naked’, actually meant ‘place for physical exercise’. Because the Greeks appreciated the links between exercise, education and health, their gymnasiums developed into more than places for physical exercise. They became places where boys would do physical education and take instruction in morals and ethics. As the pupils completed their education, they used the gymnasium not only to maintain fitness but also to assemble for less structured intellec- tual and social pursuits. Philosophers would come to speak to the ready-made audiences – Plato lectured at the Academy in Athens and Aristotle spoke at the Lyceum. These world-famous centres of culture were actually gymnasiums.

In the modern world, the gymnasium reverted to its principal role of fitness venue. Fitness is big business. It is a $14.8 billion industry in the USA, where 39.4 million people are health club members. However, the club membership drop-out rate is big too. If, like the authors, you’re a member of a UK gym, then you’ll know that club membership peaks and facilities are used most during January, coinciding with New Year resolutions to ‘get fit’

or ‘lose weight’. As the daylight hours increase, outdoor activities begin to compete and gym usage tapers off. In the USA the drop- out rate at fitness venues is around 30%. Club membership drop- out is not a critical issue because the industry is growing, but it would be better still if the industry could continue growing gym

membership while retaining a high proportion of existing members. So the question is, ‘What can gyms do with their facilities to maintain public appeal?’. The answer may be that the industry needs to take on some of the ‘wider mantle’ of health and education adopted by the ancient Greeks.

C h a p t e r 3

Gymnasiums

3.2

Western High School, Washington DC: girls’ physical education (circa 1899)

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Gymnasium enclosure

The modern gymnasium is a building enclosure designed to protect exercisers and equipment against the weather. Whatever happens in any building, whether due to static or dynamic force actions (including an estimate for furniture and equipment), a static, uniformly distributed load is taken over the whole floor area within the perimeter walls. Gymnasiums have a higher uniformly distributed load (UDL) than many other types of building, typically 5kN/m² (0.1kip/ft²) compared with 3kN/m²(0.06kip/ft²) for a classroom and 1.5kN/m²(0.03kip/ft²) for a hou