Litestructures Brochure PDF

Our founder and Managing Director, Adrian Brooks, created the world's first lightweight, high-strength, aluminium trussing system, Astralite and, in the 30
years since then, we have continued to develop and advance that original concept to the extent that today, we manufacture the largest range of modular,
structural aluminium components, anywhere. Standing proud amongst our many innovations during this time are Livelite, which was the first trussing system
to carry built-in power tracks, Digitruss, which, in addition to power, can convey digitally encoded control protocols, and Litedeck, our advanced, industry
leading staging system with its unique, labour-saving, Toplock fixing method. It is, however, in the arena of custom design, manufacture and installation,
that Litestructures' capacity for innovation is best expressed, and our engineering expertise showcased. We are pleased here to present our project portfolio.
Red Bull F1
04 - 05
Best of the Best
16 - 17
The Hub, Doncaster Education City
06 - 07
PC World
18 - 19
Volume at the V&A
08 - 11
Nueva Condomina
20 - 23
Westlife
12 - 13
Subaru World Rally Team
24 - 25
Heathrow, Terminal 5
14 - 15
Meadowhall Shopping Centre
26 - 27
Red Bull F1
Client: Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso
Location: All F1 Venues
Litestructures is very much at home in the high tech, high
performance world of Formula One™. Accordingly, we have
now provided 3 key elements for Red Bull Racing and
Scuderia Toro Rosso, including garage workstations, support
structures and the all-important telemetry pod.
After the drivers and the cars themselves, the telemetry
pod is arguably the most important resource, seeing constant
use during practice qualifying and the race itself. The pod
needs to be weatherproof, structurally strong and stable
and be able to incorporate monitors and associated
electronics as well as seating. It is paramount that it is
lightweight, easy to assemble and dismantle for trucking.
Having excelled with our equipment supply for the 2006
campaign, Red Bull Racing came directly to Litestructures
with a creative outline design, not only for their own new
2007 seasons’ requirements, but also similar structures for
their sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso. The equipment
inventory included 8 Astralite garage sets, 12 individual
work stations plus LED feature lighting and a viewing area
for the pit garage.
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05
The Hub, Doncaster Education City
Client: HGB
Location: Doncaster
Like many campuses, Doncaster College comprises an assortment
of buildings, in diverse locations. Its centre, The Hub, provides a
focal point, and also houses the College's main lecture theatre.
This generated a requirement for a central feature which would
be visually strong and impactful, both by day and by night.
Around 22m in length and 15m wide, the finished structure,
representing a cloudscape, uses specially adapted Litestructures
trussing components, both to suspend the custom plastic structures
and membranes. The power and data lines are carried within our
Digitruss system, enabling the 16 x 100W Chromafloods, and
delivering DMX control to create day and night illuminated scenes
in constantly changing colour, giving both architectural presence
and focus.
As well as engineering and materials expertise, this project
highlights Litestructures' ability to provide state-of-the-art lighting
solutions.
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07
Volume at the V&A
Client: United Visual Artists
Location: London
Internationally acclaimed, Volume, an interactive light and sound sculpture housed within
the John Madejski garden at the heart of London's Victoria & Albert Museum, is a truly
inspirational experience. It was Litestructures' task to turn United Visual Artists' bold
concept and ambition into beautiful reality.
Central to the exhibit are 46 lighting and sound columns, arrayed to give a floating effect,
loaded with state-of-the-art Barco LED panels and discreet loudspeakers, all fully interactive,
using Infra-red control technology. The sophisticated technology package for each column
had to be housed within custom made aluminium extrusions, but with minimal visibility for
the framework, for which we created a special, new, black gloss finish. The entire montage
stands on a precisely contoured flat platform of Litedeck, which was cut to exactly follow
the concave floor of what was once the garden pond.
The fully finished structure was assembled, rehearsed, refined and finalised in the
Litestructures Studio before transport and re-assembly in situ.
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09 09
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Westlife
Client: Production North
Location: Touring
Touring, with a slick and spectacular stage show, is an essential
feature of life for chart-topping boybands like the irrepressible
impresario Louis Walsh's protégés, Westlife. Litestructures have
furnished the staging for their last three tours, and their latest was
no exception.
While the band rehearsed in the Litestructures Studio, our design
and build team were constructing a brand new stage set for them,
following a concept evolved by Peter Barnes, the design brain
behind the Live8 stage. For the Litestructures team, this was a
project, rather than an event while, for Westlife and their adoring
fans, it was a major success. Touring stage sets like this have to
be spectacular, but they also need to be easy to assemble, dismantle
and transport. Furthermore, they have to be readily adaptable to
different stage dimensions in different venues, and the Litestructures
set, with its blend of custom and modular components, is just that.
Taking just 4 weeks from start to finish, this was another all-win
result for our combined manufacturing and studio resource.
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Heathrow, Terminal 5
Client: Alternative Access
Location: London
Prior to its imminent completion, Terminal 5 at Heathrow has been the largest
construction site in Europe, the main terminal building alone being some
400m long by 175 wide. Height is also an important feature in the overall
design, which architect Mike Davis and BAA's head of design, David Bartlett,
wanted to creatively exploit in order to create an uplifting experience for the
36 million passengers who will use it every year.
The Litestructures contribution is both considerable and, being located in
the roofspace, crucial to the realisation of the scheme. Over 9000m of
aluminium track is suspended from the roof structure, with 32 pairs of 13.5m
box trusses spanning the distance between tracks as independent mobile
gantries. Due to the curved roofline, the gantries, when not in use for
maintenance purposes, retract into the wingtip areas of the building to meet
the aesthetic requirements of the client and bear modular platforms to allow
for both flexibility in use and ease of storage. This is sophisticated engineering
requiring great strength and the highest precision. Litestructures worked
closely with Alternative Access, the lead contractor for these access and
maintenance systems, in meeting the functional design requirements, with
sub-assemblies being pre-built in the Litestructures Studio.
Litestructures is very proud to have played a role in the timely completion
of what The Times, and its architecture critic, Tom Dyckhoff, have headlined
as "an architectural triumph".
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Best of the Best
Client: Best of the Best PLC
Location: Gatwick Airport
Selling what are essentially raffle tickets, offering the chance to
win a supercar, the prize being on display in airport departure
lounges, was evidently such a good idea that the company behind
the concept, Best Of the Best (BOTB), recently achieved PLC
status.
Presentation was and is clearly vital, and it wasn't long before
BOTB approached Litestructures to produce for them a display
stand format which would enhance sales. The stand illustrated (at
Gatwick South Terminal) supports two road-legal supercars, and
provides integrated power and AV connectivity, using Cat5 cabling,
courtesy of Digitruss. The structure itself uses Litedeck and polished
Astralite AO3 modular components, adapted to accommodate
cabinets for P.O.S. materials, arresting LED lighting and video
display monitors.
BOTB understands that impactful display is crucial in stimulating
sales. Litestructures understands how to achieve this.
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PC World
Client: Dixons Stores Group
Location: UK and Europe
Our relationship with PC World, one of the specialist arms of the Dixons Stores Group,
spans more than 10 years and 100 installs.
Briefed to design an instore feature which would both highlight promotional merchandise
such as i-Pods, Playstation or X-Box and differentiate the PC World outlets from competitors
and siblings, Litestructures produced several designs. For this latest brief, Dixons chose
a conical structure, based on a Shoplite truss circle, incorporating elastic composite, hightech textile sheeting, polycarbonate shroud and advanced LED fixtures, installed complete
with all wiring and control.
Other successful Litestructures designs have also been used in PC City stores in Sweden,
Italy and Spain.
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19
Nueva Condomina
Client: Deparcom
Location: Murcia, Spain
Located on the outskirts of Murcia in Spain, Nueva Condomina is the largest shopping centre
in Mediterranean Europe and has been designed around an underwater theme.
Recognising that a large space needs to make a big statement, Deparcom approached
Litestructures to design, produce and install several very large structures, some featuring
waves up to 100m long, all designed to animate the main foyer and entrances with flair and
style. From this demanding brief, Litestructures quickly produced 3-D visuals and walkthroughs as part of the preview process.
Once accepted, the freeform designs, which also feature stretch PVC cladding, were prebuilt in the Litestructures Studio, the entire task being completed in less than 2 months from
instruction to installation.
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Subaru World Rally Team
Client: Prodrive
Location: All World Rally Venues
Based upon their concept sketch, Prodrive commissioned Litestructures to produce a stylish, transportable structure to function as the service area for three Subaru World Rally team cars.
Part of the brief was that all cables for lighting and power should be concealed. Accordingly, in our finished design, all lighting is recessed into the truss and custom power sockets are attached
at the end of each length. Light, power and air are all integrated into the structure, and necessary wiring is hidden, either within the main truss tubes, or behind lighting panels, ensuring a
sleek appearance, inside and out. The overall Litepro modular structure incorporates tensioning for the roof and side canopy and panels. Stabilisation is assured by the inclusion of UHD
concrete ballast blocks, which also facilitate easy trucking. The project took two months from commission to completion.
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Meadowhall Shopping Centre
Client: Carillion
Location: Sheffield
Continually refreshed and updated, Meadowhall is one of Britain's most enduringly successful shopping centres, and its food court, Oasis, is at its heart. The Litestructures feature ceiling
installation here, while representing a dramatic enhancement to this important area, presented us with only one major challenge. The structure, which had to be positioned to avoid such
things as ventilation ducts and fire sprinklers, required 48 individual 4-sectioned frames, each covered with a stretch membrane, in order to create a tile effect ceiling patchwork, plus
accommodation for underlying cold-cathode colour-change lighting. The installation had to be completed out of hours, at night, to avoid disruption to normal operations, and was completed
within the required 5-week timeframe from commission to completion. The finished design uses modular construction to facilitate maintenance access and any future updates.
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“ They should be pretty proud
of themselves . . .
I’d go again in a heartbeat.”
Mark ‘Springo’ Spring,
Production Manager
George Michael 25 Live Tour
“ If you need aluminium
fabrications, Litestructures
are your first choice.”
Peter Walker,
Managing Director
Alternative Access
“ Without Litestructures, I don’t think
we’d have got it together in the
time frame we had . . . I can’t thank
them enough.”
John Gray,
Production Manager
Scissor Sisters ‘Ta-Dah’ Tour, 2007
“ Totally professional.”
Dave Rudlin,
Rally Team Manager
Subaru World Rally Team
Our approach
The projects highlighted in this brochure are certainly special, and mostly unique but,
for Litestructures, they are not unusual. Each year, we successfully complete dozens
of projects, large and small and, at the same time, we achieve both rapid response
and cost-effective completion. We are able to do this because we maintain a high
level of expertise in the following three disciplines.
Design
Great design must be fit for purpose. At Litestructures we
have a dedicated team of CAD engineers and project
managers all committed to understanding the customers
demands and exceeding their expectations. Creativity is key.
Any brief can be developed into spectacular reality.
Manufacturing
Craftsmanship. An ever scarcer resource in an automated
world, but one which is vital in the creation of a unique
structure. Our state-of-the-art UK manufacturing facility houses
specialist engineers and fabricators who pride themselves
on delivering a quality final product, on time and on budget.
Install
Our team of skilled technicians and installers, have an award
winning reputation for results. The unique benefit of having
Litestructures Studios on site, the largest of its kind in Europe,
enables us to trial, pre-build or modify any concept in house,
prior to delivery.
Litestructures, aluminium and the environment.
Litestructures is committed to energy conservation, in manufacturing and across all areas of its business. In several of the projects
featured in this brochure, those where we have provided the ancillary equipment such as lighting, we have chosen low-energy,
long-life solutions. Aluminium is the core of our business, and we are therefore pleased to be identified with the virtues of what is
increasingly seen as the 'green' metal. What follows is a synopsis of those virtues.
First commercially produced in 1888, aluminium has quickly become the second most used metal. It is strong, durable, flexible in
its applications, impermeable, light in weight, does not corrode and is 100% recyclable. Nearly three quarters of all the aluminium
ever made remains in use today, representing a growing 'energy and resource' bank which can be endlessly re-used.
By far the most abundant metallic element in the Earth's crust, aluminium is also easy to extract. Its ore, bauxite, is typically found
in seams around 12 metres thick, just below the surface topsoil, so its mining causes little or no permanent damage to the
environment. Although producing aluminium from bauxite the first time round is energy intensive, more than 75% of world production
is powered by hydro-electricity, itself a renewable resource.
Europe leads the way in aluminium recycling, with Norway managing a staggering 93% re-use. Around 65% of all the aluminium
drink cans in the world are recycled. These impressive numbers are growing. All of Litestructures aluminium scrap is recycled.The
statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus is one of the earliest examples of the creative use of aluminium. It is well over 100 years old and
remains in excellent condition despite constant bombardment from pollutants and pigeons.
Among its many other attributes, aluminium is a good conductor of heat, and its relatively low melting point makes its recycling
both easy and energy efficient. It can be surface treated or coloured by a variety of methods. At Litestructures we prefer powder
coating or polishing, and we use sophisticated techniques to carefully control these processes and so protect the environment.
So, our green finish is still 'green'.
Litestructures(GB)Limited
Langthwaite Business Park
South Kirkby, Wakefield WF9 3NR
West Yorkshire, England
Telephone + 44 (0)1977 659860
Fax + 44 (0)1977 659801
email: projects@litestructures.co.uk
www.litestructures.co.uk