Racket sports

Padel

Padel is currently our most requested segment, and the one where the gap between an adequate court and an excellent one shows fastest. Turnkey padel court construction means a single party answerable from the first survey to the first serve: padel court builder and padel court installer are the same contact here. A court measures 20 by 10 metres plus circulation run-offs: little on paper, a great deal as soon as four of them have to fit inside an existing building. A padel court feasibility study therefore starts with clear height, which is what most often stops an indoor project, before structure or budget are even discussed.

The padel structure is the part that decides everything else. We match it to the building's grid rather than to a catalogue standard: posts, rails, glazing supports, ball-stop panels and cladding. An indoor padel court, an outdoor padel court and a panoramic padel court do not call for the same answer - the panoramic removes the intermediate posts on the glazed side, which changes how loads are carried and demands different glass. It is exactly the kind of part we draw and then manufacture to measure in the workshop.

Padel court glazing is the most exposed element of all: toughened glass, thickness and fixings sized for repeated impact and for the span available. An undersized fixing does not show on handover; it shows in the first season, and replacing it costs more than sizing it properly would have. We settle that on the drawing, along with the rest of the product design.

Padel synthetic turf governs the speed of play, and players feel it before the operator does. Fibre height, density, quantity and grading of the sand infill, laying direction: those four parameters separate a court that suits competitors from one that suits beginners. We discuss it with you according to the audience you are after, because there is no universal answer - a coaching club and a competition club do not want the same thing.

Padel court lighting is judged on what you do not see: glare on the serve and the smash, when the eye travels upwards. Floodlights positioned off the lines of play, colour temperature, uniformity across the whole surface. Outdoors there is also light spill for the neighbours, which can decide a consent. Installation and adjustment end with tests in real conditions, at night where the court is lit.

Finally, a padel club fit-out does not stop at the courts. Designing a padel complex is settled as much in the reception, the clubhouse, the changing rooms and how players move around: that is what decides whether players stay after the match, and therefore a good share of the revenue. We treat it on the same footing as the courts, from the design stage onwards.

Tennis

Tennis demands the most generous run-offs of the four: 36.57 by 18.27 metres for a competition court with its clearances, and a clear height that rules out most buildings not designed for it. Indoors, a tennis court fit-out is therefore rarely a fit-out at all: it is a building project, and we generally work alongside a design team on the sports equipment package.

The choice of surface structures everything else. Acrylic resin on porous concrete, sand-filled synthetic turf, natural or artificial clay: each has its speed, its joint comfort, its upkeep and its life. Clay needs watering, rolling and seasonal renovation; resin needs almost nothing but returns more into the joints. We put those trade-offs on the table early, because they drive the running budget as much as the capital one.

Outdoors, the orientation of the court is a constraint you cannot undo: a north-south axis keeps the low evening sun out of the server's eyes. Add to that drainage, without which a court will not dry quickly after rain, and ball-stop fencing, whose height is calculated from real trajectories rather than from habit.

We also handle the peripheral equipment - posts, nets, player benches, windbreaks, scoring -, whose fitting and adjustment we carry out, and the refurbishment of existing courts, which is a large part of our tennis work: a surface at the end of its life, failing drainage or obsolete lighting can be put right without rebuilding. See our racket sports projects for examples of refurbishment.

Squash

Squash is the most demanding of the four to build, because the court is not a floor: it is a box. All four walls are part of the playing area, and their flatness, hardness and ball response matter as much as the timber floor. A wall that sounds hollow, or is a few millimetres out of true, changes the bounce and is noticed immediately.

We work either in masonry courts with a specific render, or in panel courts built on a frame - the second allowing installation inside an existing building without structural work, and dismantling if the premises are leased. The toughened glass back wall, now common for visibility from the club, brings its own fixings and its own load path: a part we draw case by case.

The squash court surface is a sprung timber sports floor on battens, with the shock absorption a sport of short movements and hard braking demands. Ventilation is the point most often forgotten: a squash court is an enclosed volume where two players generate a lot of heat and moisture, and a poorly ventilated court becomes slippery. We deal with it from the design stage, alongside the other services.

Lighting comes from the ceiling, recessed or in protected surface fittings, with strict uniformity: a shadow at the back of the court is a fatal defect. As with the other sports, the setting is checked in real play before the court is handed over.

Badminton

Badminton is the racket sport most sensitive to two parameters that are rarely discussed: clear height and draughts. The shuttle is a light projectile whose path climbs high and is deflected by the slightest movement of air. Insufficient clear height above the net rules out the lifted game, and a badly placed ventilation grille distorts rallies without anyone understanding why.

A badminton hall fit-out therefore starts with the volume and the ventilation, before the surface. We measure the heights under the roof structure, under the services and under the light fittings - three different figures, and it is the lowest that counts - then set out the courts accordingly, with the side and back run-offs the game requires.

The surface is usually a sports PVC floor or timber, with badminton markings that often overlap others. That overlap is an exercise in arbitration: beyond three or four sets of lines a floor becomes unreadable, particularly for school use. We settle it with you on the drawing, as on our multi-sport space projects, where badminton frequently shares a hall with volleyball and basketball.

Finally, lighting has to be lateral or indirect: floodlights in line with the court, seen from below by a player tracking a lifted shuttle, are blinding. It is a common fault in halls converted from an earlier use, and it can be corrected without redoing everything. We take on those corrections as readily as new installations, with the follow-up that goes with them - see our maintenance services.