Shebara Island features seamless stainless-steel orbs, futuristic ‘pod’ villas, which redefines coastal luxury and sustainability. Over 15,000m² of EcoMatPro KodeK® decking was installed in this landmark project. KodeK®’s advanced technical performance, made it the ideal boardwalk material for this one-of-a-kind luxury resort.
The Shebara Island Services Hatch design was a project that Design Smart completed for our EcoMatPro client after several other contractors tried and failed at resolving the tricky design criteria.
Whilst the large Hatches look rudimentary as shown in the images there were 62 of these larger Hatches required. They had to cope with both variable steel sub frame apertures and variable locations within the boardwalk(s). This was while working in with the carefully positioned 140mm wide decking layout patterns across the boardwalks that the Hatches were to be located in, and to also suit the fastidious aesthetic appearance required.
The Access Hatches framing also had to be strong enough to support a 1.5 tonne fire truck, which needed to transverse the boardwalk and drive across these Hatches. SolidWorks Simulations were performed to optimise their steel frame work strength to weight ratio.
As mentioned, this was all while the Access Hatches needed to have matching decking layout patterns themselves and to then hinge up through 90 degrees to provide access to services below without binding on the saw tooth adjoining pattern into the surrounding boardwalk decking. The decking layout pattern only has 5mm clearance gap between each 140mm wide decking board. The final design addressed these issues by allowing the exact position of the Hatches to move perpendicular to the decking run direction, locating them to suit the exact integration of the decking between the Hatches and the boardwalk. The hinge support positions were then aligned before their supporting brackets were tac welded and bolted into the exact location that enabled the Hatches to freely hinge open.