STRUCTURAL MEMBRANES 2025

Mobile roof of Suzanne Lenglen court at Roland-Garros : Membrane roof construction & feedback

  • Aubry, Simon (T/E/S/S)
  • Lefeu, Chloé (T/E/S/S)
  • Vaudeville, Bernard (T/E/S/S)

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In 2019, the French Tennis Federation held a competition for the design of a retractable covering for the Suzanne Lenglen court. The aim was to enable matches to be played in all weather conditions and at all times of day, including the festivities of summer 2024 in Paris. This project, designed by architect Dominique Perrault and T/E/S/S, will reach one year and a half of exploitation at the time of the conference. The concept of the project and its engineering challenges were presented at STRUCTURAL MEMBRANE-2023 during its construction [1]. This conference will present the fabrication and assembly of the membrane roof, the challenges met during this phase and feedback of the project after one year of use by the client. The mobile membrane roof is made of TENARA PTFE membrane. It is composed of 21 V-shaped tensioned fabric modules which span between ridge and valley cables. The membrane covers a total area of approximately 4,800 square meters. Each module is approximately 5 meters wide and 44 meters long. When the roof is deployed, the cables are tensioned and maintain a back-to-back catenary configuration which resists both positive and negative vertically applied loads, while providing the form-found geometry for the membrane.