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Slingco at Capel Soar
Slingco has installed five CableNet tensioned wire grid frames, each measuring 3 x 11 metres, into the newly refurbished Capel Soar (Soar Ffrwdamos) multi-purpose arts, entertainment and learning space at Tonypandy in South Wales. The project has been co-ordinated by Valley’s Kids, a local charity working with children and young people in the area.
Valley’s Kids grew out of the success of the Penygraig Community project, set up in 1978 to work with teenagers. The entire area was decimated with the closure of the mines in the 1980s, becoming one of the poorest and most disadvantaged in the UK. A major aim of Valley’s Kids is to encourage individuals and communities to broaden their horizons and achieve their full potential through engagement in different activities and new experiences.
The £2.4 million refurbishment of Capel Soar – an old Baptist Chapel dating back to 1831/32 – is a massive boost to Valley’s Kids and a major step forward in offering interactive environments for learning, working and experiencing a range of activities from football and theatre to dance, cinema and everything in between. It’s been funded by a combination of The Arts Council of Wales, the local authority, European community funding and grant giving trusts.
Theatre technical consultant Iain Hill from Illusion International originally thought the roof aperture would be ideally suited to a CableNet system and put the idea forward. He’s been involved with Valley’s Kids for many years, and worked closely with project architect John Card from ETP Projects in Cardiff.
Hill contacted Slingco’s Nick Dykins, who took him, John Card and a number of others involved including Richard Morgan and Denise Lord from Valley’s Kids to see the CableNet installation at the new Millennium Centre in Cardiff.
This convinced everyone that it was an excellent and hugely flexible solution to provide a completely safe working environment for those in the roof over the main auditorium and performance space at Capel Soar. “Children and adults can work up there in total confidence – it’s far safer than working off a ladder or tallescope,” comments Hill.
The renovation project has left many of the Chapel’s original features intact, so with aesthetics to the fore, they also wanted a neat system that kept all the theatre space’s necessary technical equipment, cables, and any other general production paraphernalia, etc., concealed and out of the way. Again CableNet fitted the bill.
The five CableNets all butt up to one another and are constructed from 3mm diameter 7x9 steel wire rope. They’re capable of taking point loads of 250kgs and a distributed load of 360kg (four persons).
The nets have been fitted into the Chapel’s original timber beams, and saddle mounted onto the incumbent timber trusses. The method of fixing was quite challenging - being old and charismatic, none of the building was level or straight! A Slingco crew of four completed the installation over two weeks, with the CableNets built in situ on scaffold platforms and woven onto the steel work – rather then the grids being completed in the floor and lifted into position.
Slingco’s Nick Dykins comments: “It was a pleasure to be involved in the Capel Soar project. There is a genuine enthusiasm from the clients and design team who see the project very much as a community asset. Installing into old buildings is always rewarding, specially when you compare ‘before’ to ‘after’. ”
14th March 2006
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