My World Tuesday - Tennis and Inflatable Buildings

My son plays tennis, and one of the places that holds regular tournaments is the local Flying Horse club. The indoor tennis there is held in what is basically a big inflatable building. A concrete base forms the foundation, and then the building is blown up on top of that. Huge fans run constantly to keep the air pressure inside the building higher than the outside air pressure; this keeps the roof from falling in. In this first shot you can see the curvature of the building and the entrance, which is a rotating door that serves as an air lock.

Thick cables anchor the bubble to the foundation to keep it from flying away in strong winds.

Inside you can see the lights hanging from the roof, lighting the four full-sized tennis courts. When the wind is strong, these lights swing back and forth as the roof moves.

The roof curves up, and a curtain is hung from the ceiling so people can walk between the courts without getting hit by tennis balls.

These indoor tennis bubbles are springing up all over the place in Colorado, my guess is that they are cheaper to build than a steel and concrete structure. That's a part of my world for this week, for other interesting posts, visit the main My World Tuesday web page.