A green funnel-shaped shade structure from MakMax Australia was installed over the queue-up area of the Leviathan rollercoaster ride at the Sea World theme park on the Gold Coast, QLD.
Completed in December 2021, the 130sqm shade structure in an inspired design provides shade protection to visitors queuing up for the latest thrilling rollercoaster ride at the iconic theme park.
The Brief
The Sea World Leviathan rollercoaster is part of The New Atlantis precinct, a $50 million expansion at the popular Gold Coast theme park. The new development features three new attractions and thrill rides, including the impressive wooden rollercoaster called the Leviathan.
The mighty Leviathan is an incredible wooden lattice structure that supports the train as it races by on the track at high speeds. Sea World Theme Park visitors can expect to be thrilled as they experience thundering 90 second quest across wooden terrain, through exhilarating turns, drops and dips.
MakMax Australia was approached by the clients, Badge Construction and Village Roadshow Theme Parks, to design and install a large shade structure to provide shade coverage for patrons while they queued for the Leviathan roller coaster. The client requested a shade canopy over the central queuing area that would not obstruct the view of the ride while still providing sufficient shade coverage. Located within the rollercoaster framework, the structure needed to be themed to match the overall design aesthetic of the Leviathan to enhance the user experience.
The Concept
The design concept of the new Sea World Leviathan shade structure was inspired by a whirlpool dragging sailors into the briny depths of the Leviathan’s Ocean lair. We designed an inverted funnel-shaped PVC shade structure that is suspended from the central footing, giving a relatively unobstructed view of the ride from the queue. The exposed steel beams supporting the PVC funnel arch over the queuing thrill seekers like the ribs of a sunken ship and are themed to match similar park elements located at the entrance to The New Atlantis precinct.
The Materials
The 130m² funnel-shaped shade structure is fabricated with Serge Ferrari 502 PVC fabric in Porcelain Green with green-painted steel columns to match the theme and design of the new Sea World Leviathan rollercoaster.
Preliminary design analysis indicated that the preferred Porcelain Green 502 fabric, despite being an ideal colour to match the brief, was not structurally adequate to meet the design and safety requirements. Our solution was to add structural valley cables inside the cone to reduce the span of the fabric. We also added a secondary inner layer of the fabric at the highest stress area around the base of the cone for additional strength.
The Result
Overall, the Sea World development has been a 2-year project, with COVID outbreaks and border closures causing major delays to the opening of the new Atlantis Precinct. The slow pace of the overall project presented a challenge for MakMax during the installation of the Sea World Leviathan shade structure. With the coaster being built at the same time, limited site access and a forest of scaffolding supporting the rising monster rollercoaster made the installation a challenge. The fabricated steel beams were able to be painted to match the theming of the structure prior to arriving onsite. Despite a wet summer season, a week of good weather in December helped MakMax complete the installation quite quickly.
As with all shade construction projects, the most exciting part for MakMax was to finally see their structure in its new completed environment.
For MakMax, the shade structure project at the Sea World Leviathan was both fun and challenging, with the company adapting some of their standard engineering design practices to create a structure using a grade of fabric that was initially deemed unsuitable. This experience will allow MakMax to use the more vibrant PVC colour ranges of fabrics in future projects.
