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Pattons Australia

@pattonsaus

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Australia’s leading specialists in the design, fabrication and installation of custom shade structures and event fabrics

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18 structures. 8 weeks. One major event build.

Across Grand Slam Oval, Kia Arena, Garden Square, the Northern Car Parks, 1573 Arena and Middle Terrace, the Pattons team delivered a series of structures designed to support the movement, shade, entertainment and atmosphere surrounding one of Melbourne’s biggest sporting events.

What makes a project like this unique is the intensity of the build. In a matter of weeks, completely bare areas are transformed into fully functioning event spaces, with multiple structures being installed, adapted and coordinated across the precinct at the same time.

Some of these structures have also been part of the site for years, evolving with each event and taking on a new form as the precinct changes around them.

Fast moving. Highly coordinated. Built to perform.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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a day ago

Slimline steel. Flamboyant fabric. Engineered to fall exactly where it needs to.

For this public park centrepiece, architects specified a circular frame with a flat fabric surface, a brief that needed careful engineering to hold its architectural integrity. Pattons worked alongside the design team to keep the steel frame slimline, letting the fabric take centre stage as a bold, flamboyant shade sail.

The challenge: achieving that flat, circular form while still meeting engineering requirements for hail and heavy rain. The solution was a suspended sky ring, cable-tensioned at the centre of the structure, creating just enough fall to shed water without compromising the flat aesthetic the design called for.

The result is a bright, unique structure that draws attention, protects the space from sun and adverse weather, and proves that function and beauty aren't mutually exclusive, they're a Pattons specialty.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

16

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8 days ago

Three years in Garden Square. A new look each time.

Positioned outside Rod Laver Arena, this structure has returned for another season with a refreshed palette of organic greens and neutral tones, giving the existing build a completely different visual identity while keeping its original purpose intact.

Behind the finished structure is a carefully coordinated five day install involving a team of around 10 people. With Garden Square sitting below the surrounding level, the truss components need to be craned into the site from outside the precinct before the main grid can be raised into position using lifters and finished with its fabric skin.

It is a build that combines repeatable engineering with the flexibility to evolve alongside the space around it.

Reimagined for another year. Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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15 days ago

Tight. Neat. Flat. Every time.

At the Sydney Cricket Ground, Pattons engineered a sight screen system built to deliver better conditions for players and spectators alike, using three custom tensioning methods to achieve the tightest, flattest coverage in the country.

The system is wind-rated to prevent excessive movement and play stoppages, with a non-reflective surface engineered to eliminate glare in direct sun. Coverage plans were purpose-designed around cricketer and umpire sightlines, with one-way vision screens fitted to parapet areas to block moving pedestrians behind the bowlers, plus additional site-specific solutions for tricky areas and safety needs.

Cost-effective and quick to install, the system has been in use at the SCG for several seasons, and is rated the best sight screen coverage in Australia.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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22 days ago

Five scenes. One cloth. Sydney Harbour.

For West Side Story, Pattons engineered a 220m² backdrop that shifted between five scenic applications using light, print and fabrication alone, from the Brooklyn Bridge truss to the Statue of Liberty torch, lit and unlit.

Built to hold 90km/h winds, de-rig fast for safety, and tension out flat with zero wrinkles, replacing five separate screens with one engineered solution.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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a month ago

800m² of shade. Zero ground penetration. One tight 12-week build.

For Garden Square at the Australian Open, we needed a structure that did two things at once, deliver serious shade in peak summer heat, and stay completely out of the way of sightlines to the big screens.

The fix: 40 tonnes of concrete ballast for structural integrity, no footings required. Geometry was locked in using a 3D point cloud survey and modelling from 82 viewpoints, precise enough to clear the screens from 40m back while keeping the Rod Laver Arena sign in shot.

The finish matched the ambition. Custom-printed panels tied into the event’s visual theme, with ballasts and trusses fully clad for a seamless look.

Installed in 5 days. Removed in 3. The site left exactly as it was found, less than a week after the tournament wrapped.
The result: the 2024 Shade Sails or Structures, Commercial Award from the Specialised Textile Association.
Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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a month ago

Glenn Murcutt AO sheltering under an aeroplane wing in Mexico became the starting point for Melbourne’s 2019 M-Pavilion, the first project in tension membrane.

The brief called for a shallow, sleek roofline. The physics said tension membranes need steep falls to shed water.
Our engineering team ran the FEM/FEA case studies to make both true at once.

Rigid steel, soft skin, glowing lantern-like after dark. Precision, dressed as ease.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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a month ago

A canopy that works as hard as the cars underneath it.

For Kia’s activation at the Australian Open, we engineered a tensile fabric structure built to shift with the day, crisp white sail by afternoon, a lit canvas by night.
Come sundown, the arches carry colour instead of shadow.

Form, function, and a few thousand fans walking underneath it.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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2 months ago

From above, the scale of the Albert Park build reveals itself, a striking geometric canopy holding its own against the F1 precinct, the Melbourne skyline, and the lake beyond. Structure engineered to perform at the biggest event on the calendar.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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2 months ago

Melbourne Park doesn’t sleep during the Australian Open, and neither do our structures.

By day they shade and shelter. By night, lit up in AO colour, they help turn the precinct into one of the best atmospheres in Australian sport.

Structural fabric doing double duty: engineering by day, spectacle by night.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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2 months ago

Trackside at Albert Park, shade becomes structure.
Clean steel frames carry a tensioned canopy in racing-inspired colourways, engineered to shelter fans through a full day of racing while holding its line against Melbourne’s shifting conditions.

Every panel, seam and connection point was built for one of the biggest weekends on the motorsport calendar, precision on the grid, precision in the build.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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2 months ago

Grand Slam Oval, reimagined.

Each canopy is engineered to filter Melbourne’s summer light into something softer, shade that moves with the sun, structure that reads as sculpture. Sixteen individual membrane “petals,” each cantilevered from a central mast, working together to shelter thousands of fans across Opening Week and beyond.

It’s tensile architecture doing what it does best: covering ground without boxing it in. Open on all sides, light on its feet, built to stand up to a Melbourne summer and still look this good doing it.

Built by Pattons. by @pattonsaus

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3 months ago