Field of Dreams

Fabritecture was contracted for the design and construction of the bespoke canopy structure for the Field of Dreams project at Oxford Falls Grammar School in New South Wales, Australia. The concept design required weather protection for two competition playing courts located on the top floor of the two-storey facility.

Along with the PTFE canopy, stainless steel mesh was also installed along the sides of the open-air structure. This effectively encloses the space without sacrificing air circulation. The inclusion of the mesh also acts as a fall protection and ensures that balls and other equipment do not fall onto the nearby road.

Location: Oxford Falls, NSW
Completion Date: 2023
Size: 2,200m2 (253,680ft2)
Fabric: PTFE & Stainless Steel Mesh

Photographer: Paramount Studios

The Annual General Meeting of the

Lightweight Structures Association of Australasia Inc.

Year 2022/23

 will be held from 11:00AM to 11:30AM AEDT.

 on

Thursday 30^th November, 2023

The meeting will be held via Microsoft Teams

Formal notice and attached reports have been emailed to financial members (November 2 2023)

Melbourne, Australia - Naomi Milgrom AC, Founder of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation and Professor Alec Cameron, Vice-Chancellor and President, RMIT University have today jointly announced that MPavilion 2022 designed by Rachaporn Choochuey of all(zone), Thailand has been gifted to RMIT University and will be relocated to its new home at RMITís Brunswick campus.

Experimenting with materials and forms being used for the first time in Australia, all(zone), a female-led architecture studio based in Bangkok, Thailand, worked closely with Melbourne based Zilka Studio, TENSYS and AECOM to realise MPavilion 2022. MPavilion 2022 at Queen Victoria Gardens saw 352 free events 8 December 2022 to 8 April 2023 involving over 600 collaborators and attracting over 350,000 visitors.

The LSAA welcomes its newest corporate member Teufelberger-Redaelli.

Teufelberger is now a seventh generation family business. It was established in 1790 in Austria as a hemp ropery but now has expanded to handle the vast array of flexible tensile ropes and cables such as those used in lightweight structures.

Relatively recently, in 2018, Teufelberger and the Italian company Redaelli proudly announce the merger of their brands for the wire rope business.

Examples of tensile structures supported with Teufelberger Redaelli cable systems include;

Ken Rosewall Arena tension ring roof, Sydney, Australia
This project was entered into the LSAA 2022 Design Awards by Fabritecture - see entry details here

Matagarup Bridge, Perth, Australia

The Leaf at Assiniboine Park, ETFE cable net tensile structure, Winnipeg, Canada

Budapest Olympic Stadium tension ring roof, Hungary

Hard Rock Stadium cable stayed roof, Miami, USA

Alfred Street arch bridge, Sydney, Australia

Army Stadium tension ring roof, Cairo, Egypt

The Culture Shed, cable net façade, New York USA

Khan Shatyr ETFE cable net tensile structure, Astana, Kazakhstan

Wanda Metropolitano Stadium tension ring roof, Madrid, Spain

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Athens, Greece

Terminal 2 Incheon Airport cable supported glass curtain wall, Korea

Allianz Juventus Stadium, Turin, Italy

Porto Alegre Stadium cable net roof, Brazil

The High Roller Wheel, Las Vegas, USA

Yas Island F1 Circuit, Abu Dhabi UAE

Estadio Ciudad tension ring roof, Valencia, Spain

Athens Olympic Stadium, arch roof, Athens, Greece

The London Eye Observation Wheel, London, UK

Download a beautifully illustrated Case Study Book HERE

The theme of the IASS 2023 symposium is Integration of Design and Fabrication, which is becoming increasingly important with the developments of digital technologies in both design and manufacturing.

Both our (LSAA) President Peter Lim from Tensys, and our Vice-President Scott Rathie from Arups gave presentations on the opening day of the Symposium.

Images from Greg Goldblatt.

Some images from the Master Class workshop:

HVG Fabrics is pleased to announce the appointment of Mike Fisher to the newly created role of Business Development Manager – Shade Structures.

Mike comes to HVG with an extensive shade fabric background, notably as the general manager of Polyfab Australia for the last 6 years.

“HVG are very pleased to have someone of Mike’s pedigree in the Shade Fabric market join our national team of fabrics specialists.  With a business driven by relationships built on trust and reliability, we believe Mike adds significant value with his many years experience in performance textiles.” Said Daniel Gollan, Business Manager of HVG Fabrics.

Dr Paul Joseph has worked in our industry continuously since gaining his Doctorate in Civil Engineering at Cambridge in 1987.

His Undergraduate Civil Engineering degree is from the University of Melbourne (1980, First Class Honours) and he followed this with a two year stint with the John Connell group here and in the UK.

On his return to Australia he spent twelve years with Spacetech where a major achievement was the development of the Oktalok Spaceframe System which was recognized with an Australian Design Award in 1990. Some outstanding projects including space frames at Melbourne Central and the Zenith Centre in Chatswood.

He acted as Design Engineer and Project Manager on many tension membrane structures including the Eureka Museum sails in Ballarat.

From 1999 to 2002 Paul was a Manager with Skyspan Pacific running the Melbourne office and providing management and technical support to agents in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia.

This was followed by a period with Tensys (2002 to 2008) where he first acted as the technical project manager for the New Bangkok Airport Concourse Structures. As an Associate, taking on a wide range of responsibilities and support for a growing geographical presence.

Michael Lester has over 40 years professional engineering experience, specialising in tensile membrane structures which began with his work on a 1000 sqm fabric canopy for World Expo 88 in Brisbane.

His experience, innovation and engineering knowledge have ensured that the domestic and international project portfolio he has subsequently built, including Metricon Stadium, Queensland State Velodrome, Brasilia Stadium, Cape Town Stadium, Dubai Cricket Stadium and The Brisbane Gabba are recognised as iconic tensile membrane projects.

Other Australian significant tensile membrane projects include Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, Pat Rafter Arena (Qld), Optus Stadium (Perth), Swan River Pedestrian Bridge, Marrara Tennis Centre (NT) and the Adelaide Tennis Centre.

Current projects include the tensile membrane roofing and associated work for the Sydney Football Stadium.

Mike is a Civil Engineer, a member of the Institute of Engineers Australia since 1985, a registered Professional Engineer Queensland (RPEQ) and Chartered Professional Engineer(CPE) with registration in all Australian jurisdictions.

Great things are happening when groups of people are brought together who have a common goal but originate from very diverse backgrounds and vocations.

In the case of the highly successful Green School project this very “happy” circumstance occurred.

The Green School-Team with the vision and the insight to provide a firm but flexible brief, which gave the Architects Team the opportunity to use un-inhibited design processes to create a truly remarkable design and Cleland Construction willing to take on such a complex design

Then add to this potent mix of talent and vision a Team which specializes in Tension Membrane Structures, Fabric Structures, along with Fabspan a talented tensile membrane Engineer and the “chemistry” will cause a reaction.

In this case the outcome of this reaction was the birth of a remarkable achievement, which reflects the brilliance of all the partners and the Teams who saw this project through, to completion.

Fabric Structures, being a very experienced Design and Build company, had also the added benefit of a young and vigorous “Computer Savvy” design team of which the members could work their way around the very demanding geometry of the design.

Contact Details : 

James Mizen – Managing Director 
Fabric Structures Limited
Phone: +64 275276452
Website: www.fabrictructures.co.nz

For more details see article

The LSAA is pleased to welcome the Brisbane based company Versatile Structures as a new Financial Member.

We trust you will benefit from the Association and the networking and recognition opportunities offered.

The 2021 AGM date has been set for November 26 2021.

LSAA Members can expect a copy of the various Reports and Financials by the end of October.

The event will be a virtual meeting with details also becoming available very soon. (Oct 28 2021)

GALE Pacific, has received endorsement for its range of architectural shade fabrics from the Cancer Council.

Recognising that good quality shade plays a vital role in reducing UV exposure, the endorsement covers GALE’s flagship Commercial Ninety-Five® 340, Commercial Heavy 430 and Commercial DualShade® 350 ranges. The Architectural Shade Fabric range is also available in a Flame Retardant variant.

In a country with one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, the endorsement and partnership brings together a pioneer of commercial shade with Australia’s leading cancer charity that works across every area of cancer, from research, to prevention, to support.

GALE Pacific takes great pride in manufacturing the highest quality shade fabric using premium-grade materials that stand the test of time and offer UV protection. Fully tested according to AS4174 by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, GALE Pacific’s shade fabrics deliver a high level of UVE protection.

See the Media Release for more info HERE

The LSAA AGM for the 2019-20 Financial Year is to be held via Microsoft TEAMS meeting from 11am on Friday November 27, 2020.

Nomination forms and various reports have been sent earlier to all financial members.

The Agenda, Annual Report and links for members to join the meeting have also been distributed earlier (See Agenda_Reports PDF and Minutes for 2018-19 PDF).

Note that members may also join a prior TEAMS meeting at 10am on the same day to discuss progress that the LSAA has made regarding Fire Issues with Fabric Structures - see article for details.

Over the past year, (2019-20), the LSAA Fire Subcommittee has been working with fire engineering experts (Basic Experts Pty Ltd) to help navigate through the National Construction Code for developing performance solutions for coated tensile fabrics in various circumstances. Basic Expert Pty Ltd has developed a Guide to Preparing a Performance Solution for Fabric which may be downloaded HERE.

The LSAA would like to offer members the opportunity to discuss The Guide and its implications on a Microsoft TEAMS meeting which will be scheduled prior to the AGM from 10:00 am to 11 am on November 27 2020.

As a LSAA member, if you plan to attend could you This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to obtain the link before COB Thursday Nov 26 2020

The outline items to be discussed / presented are:

Over the next few months there will be a change of leadership in the Halifax Vogel Group Fabric Division.

After leading the division since 2009, Daniel Gollan will be leaving us in the next couple of months. However, we are pleased to announce that Paul Hunt has been promoted to the role of General Manager of HVG Fabrics and will transition into the role between now and when Daniel finishes up.

Daniel has overseen a period of significant growth, both in sales and the product portfolio. He has developed industry leading brands in key areas. His departure is a loss, but he leaves with our blessing and best wishes.

Paul is a more than worthy replacement. He is familiar to most of you with a 30+ year history in performance textiles. Paul brings a wealth of experience, having worked with HVG for many years in various roles and his appointment will ensure a smooth transition in leadership of the division.

HVG has been a strong supporter of LSAA.

See their Profile

August 2019

LSAA President Dr Kourosh Kayvani is Aurecon Managing Director – Design, Innovation & Eminence.

Aurecon has been named one of Australia and New Zealand’s most innovative companies, ranking number four in the professional services category of the prestigious AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies list.

The esteemed annual list, published by The Australian Financial Review and Boss magazine, is based on a rigorous assessment process managed by leading innovation consultancy Inventium in conjunction with a panel of industry expert judges. For the first time in 2019, organisations were ranked directly against their peers across ten industry lists that assessed entries from 800 nominated organisations throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Aurecon was recognised for its OpenGATE AutoDraw project that used computational design and machine learning to create automated digital drawings, driving greater accuracy, speed and enabling higher quality responses to design challenges.

For more details see http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1908/S00291/aurecon-recognised-on-afr-boss-most-innovative-companies.htm

August 2019

The LSAA is pleased to report that long term active MSAA/LSAA member Mike Lester has been appointed as Chairman of MakMax Australia.

Mike is a full Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia since 1985 and a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland. He graduated in Engineering way back in 1978 and I believe he has been involved with membrane structures from shortly after that.

Mike has served on the Association's committee in the past and has chaired our Technical Sub-committee and more recently the Fire Sub-committee.

He has been a driving force in MakMax with his involvement in many Award winning projects - such as stadia roofs in several countries and at home.

See also the MakMax Profile

Several of our LSAA Members are attending SuperExpo 2019 including:

• Gale Pacific (Booth F69)
• Hiraoka (Booth L315)
• HVG Fabrics (Booth D32)
• Miami Stainless (Booth N269)
• Nolan Group (Booth E49)
• ProKnit Industries (Booth A367)
• Serge Ferrari (Booth D35)
• The Shann Group (Booth L221)

SuperExpo 2019 is Australia's largest trade exhibition for the window furnishings and specialised textiles industries.

It will be held at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre from 12 - 14 June 2019.

For more information and to register, visit www.superexpo2019.com.au

Getting to the Starting Point (Mansfield, Thursday 11am)

The “Maddog” AKA PeterK travelled down from Sydney via the Southern Highlands when he attempted to find the necessary(?) gear for the trip into the High Country. In an earlier year featured an impromptu “show and tell” session where all participants brought out their latest gadgets (café styled coffee machines, fancy knives, cameras on long poles and drones). This year the Maddog had trouble finding even the basic gear after a move to the Southern Highlands.

Congratulations to several of our LSAA members for their Awards and International recognition at the recent IFAI 2017 Expo.

MakMax, Fabritecture, Tensys Engineers and Wade Consulting were mentioned.

More details to follow.

Houston’s Village Green was transformed in February into a vibrant “destination for play” with the completion of a new Catenary Lighting solution by Ronstan Tensile Architecture.

Discovery Green is a 12-acre park in the heart of downtown Houston, Texas that opened to the public in April 2008.  The park was transformed from an undeveloped, concrete eyesore into a beautiful and vibrant destination adjacent to the George R. Brown Convention Centre re-defining the Houston downtown and instilling a new civic pride in the city.  In preparation for the 2017 Super Bowl, the City of Houston chose a Ronstan Catenary Lighting System to create an open outdoor pedestrian area that would become “Super Bowl El Centro” and a focal point for the city’s Super Bowl related play activities.

Miami Stainless is proud to announce that we are the newly appointed distributor of the quality Blue Wave Rigging Hardware product range for Australia and New Zealand. 

Blue Wave Wire Design System products are stainless steel and are manufactured to exacting tolerances and are specified worldwide for a variety of tensile architectural structures, including fabric structures, bracing, suspension bridges, catenary and green wall projects.

Manufactured in Denmark, Blue Wave has an 85 year history of delivering the highest standard of product quality and the ability to work with your engineers to custom design unique tensile structures. The Blue Wave in house product engineer can provide necessary test reports on request.

At the 2016 LSAA Conference held at the Monash University of Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), Peter was presented with an Honorary Life Member trophy for his outstanding and long contribution to the LSAA. In particular Peter has been a driving force in the realization of the technical programs of many of our previous Conferences.

Peter Lim is a director of Tensys and working in the field of lightweight structures and space frames for the past 25 years. His expertise and experience is not only in design but also project management, execution and delivery of these unique complex geometric structures internationally 

He is a recipient of the The Indian National Group (ING) of International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) 2007 ING-IABSE medal.

He provided expert advice on the 2010 Commonwealth Games Stadiums in New Delhi, India (especially the Jawalharlal Nehru Stadium, S P Murkurjee Aquatic Stadium, Wrestling Stadium and Weightlifting Stadium)

See article

At the 2016 LSAA Conference held at the Monash University of Art, Design and Architecture (MADA), Peter was presented with an Honorary Life Member trophy for his outstanding and long contribution to the LSAA.

In particular Peter has been a driving force in the realization of the technical programs of many of our previous Conferences.

HVG Fabrics announces new partnership for Australian distribution of Serge Ferrari flexible composite materials

[April 13 2016 Press Release]

Leading Australian industrial products distribution business HVG has announced that its HVG Fabrics division has been appointed the new Australian distributor of Serge Ferrari flexible composite materials.

Serge Ferrari S.A, a French company, has been manufacturing superior quality products for various applications (textile architecture, solar protection, acoustic solutions, yachting, light modular structures for industry, signage industry, indoor &outdoor furniture) since being founded in 1973. Serge Ferrari has progressively built an outstanding reputation as a global leader and innovator in Australia since the early 90’S.

The new distribution arrangement is expected to commence on 1st June 2016 once stocks arrive into HVG’s Australian capital city distribution centres.

HVG will be officially launching its distribution of Serge Ferrari at the Superexpo on the Gold Coast in June.

Easy Release 2016

Our new Easy Relase 2016 will launch in November, it includes improvements and adds new features. A new licensing file will be required for the new version which will be sent automatically by email to all customers with a software maintenance contract.

Easy 2016 highlights:

• Easy Taylor - graphical editor for processing flattened cutting patterns, easier setting of compensation values. Seam and boundary allowance with welding marks and appropriate overlapping. Persistent points facilitate the merging of different netparts. Visual and numerical check of the cutting quality.

64 bit version - Easy Release 2016 supports the 64-bit technology. Now it is possible to access more than 4GB RAM. With the appropriate hardware and a 64-bit operation system even larger projects can be handled.

Technet is a member of LSAA - see their Profile Page

29 October 2013 - Aurecon’s experts will share insights and thinking on sustainable design at the upcoming  Lightweight Structures Association of Australasia (LSAA) Conference and Design Awards, 13 – 15 November 2013. 

The bi – annual event will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, and will focus on the theme of ‘Touching the Earth Lightly’.

Chaired by LSAA President and our Building Structures Leader, Dr Kourosh Kayvani, Aurecon’s Peter Murenu and Stephen Hogg will present papers on our recent and ongoing project work in Melbourne and Christchurch.

For more details including an interview by Kourosh see original article HERE

LSAA Member MakMax makes major progress at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium roof in Delhi, India.

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JNS) was originally built in 1982 in honour of India's first Prime Minister. Mr. Nehru is credited as the founder of modern India through political and social reform. In preparation for the upcoming 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi this facility is receiving a dramatic update. The crowning achievement to the stadium's rebirth will be the tensile membrane roof, supported by a vast cable net. MakMax was awarded the contract to supply and install an ambitious fabric and cable roof design, the structure is now near completion with 50 of the 88 fabric panels installed. Schlaich Bergermann & Partners are the structural engineers.

The world´s first Membrane Project Finder povides powerful knowledge of the Formfinder Development Group at the Technical University in Vienna. The huge database on membrane buildings includes drawings, images and complete project descriptions to access the relevant design decision information.

The next step is to open the database also for Formfinder Light users and to integrate the 350 KG (yes, Kilogramm) data collected by Professor Vinzenz Sedlak of Sydney Australia.

(Vinzenz established the MSAA and hence the LSAA in Sydney and was its President for many years).

Thousands of slides have already been scanned in and are currently prepeared for publication.

Rockhampton Southside Memorial Pool

MakMax Australia are proud to announce the award of a contract for part of the redevelopment of Rockhampton’s landmark Southside Memorial Pool.

The $17M Federal, State and Regional Council funded project will feature a 4,000 square metre tensile membrane roof over the main 50 metre pool manufactured and installed by Brisbane based MakMax.

Partnering with Brisbane’s Liquid Blu Architects and Rockhampton builder JM Kelly (Project Builders) Pty Ltd, MakMax will manufacture the Architectural Membrane roof using Serge Ferrari PVC (Poly-Vinyl Chloride) which has been supplied by local fabric distributor, Innova. The roof will provide both shade and rain protection over the 50m pool and 650 seat grandstand. Fabrication of the membrane is scheduled to take place at our Brisbane facility later this year with installation of steelwork scheduled for January 2013 and membrane to follow.

The intention to nominate Rowan Murray as a Life Member was announced by Dr Kourosh Kayvani at the LSAA Conference in New Zealand. I am pleased to report that this was ratified at the 2013 AGM.

Rowan has acted tirelessly over an extended period of time in his role as Secretary of the LSAA and without his dedication, cheerfulness and follow up skills many of the meetings may not have happened. Minutes and other notices were always kept up to date. Well done and well deserved Rowan!

The LSAA recently (2015) tendered for the SunSmart project dealing with the development of design guidelines and other documents to address aspects of shade structures using shadecloth.

Unfortunately, we were not selected for the project even though our intimate involvement in shade cloth structures goes back nearly 30 years. There are several issues that are affecting the industry recently.

Many of these issues have been highlighted by several recent accidents involving shade structures. A fatal accident in SA with several young people trespassing onto a shade structure leading to its collapse was studied by the SA Coroner who concluded, in part, that there is a lack of suitable design standards.

LSAA President in Top 100 Engineers

Our President, Dr Kourosh Kayvani, Aurecon’s (formerly Connell Wagner) special structures leader for the Asia Pacific zone has been recognised in this year’s Engineers Australia Top 100 list of most influential engineers.

The annual list appears in the June edition of Engineers Australia magazine and recognises Australian engineers who have had leading influence in industry, consulting, academia, politics and public service.

“I am honoured to be included in such a list of eminent peers in Australia,” Kourosh said.

Appearing in the category of engineering expertise, the recognition is acknowledgement of Kourosh’s 20 years of professional practice, during which time he has pushed the boundaries of structural analysis and design.

LSAA 2007 Keynote Speaker, Chris Bosse - a director of Laboratory For Visionary Architecture (LAVA) and Designsport and local Ethiopian firm JDAW have together won the international architecture competition for a new FIFA and Olympic-standard 60,000 seat stadium in Addis Ababa.

It is proposed to have a decorated tensile fabric roof and construction is due to commence in 2014.

A link to further information HERE