How STRUCTApanel helped deliver an elite basketball court. By Campbell McInnes
When Creative Flooring Solutions was tasked with installing a FIBA-approved sports floor at Hoop City’s Port Melbourne training facility, the biggest obstacle was hiding beneath their feet. A highly uneven substrate threatened to undermine the entire project, until Australian-made STRUCTApanel provided the answer.
SETTING THE SCENE: A GAME-CHANGING FACILITY
Hoop City is not your average basketball venue. Operating across several locations in Victoria, the brand has built a reputation for providing elite-level training environments for players at every level of the game. At the Port Melbourne site, the ambition was clear: a centre court worthy of the highest calibre of play — one that, in the words of Creative Flooring Solutions Director Chris Stringer, could one day host competition at the very top of the sport.
“As a FIBA-approved court, this court can host basketball games at the highest level, including Olympic or World Championship games,” says Stringer.
Delivering on that ambition, however, would require far more than a quality sports surface. It would begin with getting the base structure exactly right.
THE CHALLENGE: AN UNEVEN SUBSTRATE BENEATH
Creative Flooring Solutions is a respected name across residential, commercial and sports flooring. The Melbourne-based company, led by Chris and David Stringer and a member of the Australian Timber Flooring Association, takes pride in tailoring high-performance solutions to meet the unique demands of each project. For Hoop City’s Port Melbourne centre court, those demands would be particularly exacting.
The substrate beneath the court was found to be significantly uneven, a condition that, left unaddressed, would compromise the performance of the entire flooring system above it. This mattered enormously because the sports surface specified for the job is FIBA-approved, a certification that demands a precise and consistent level of spring and responsiveness. Any variation in the subfloor, no matter how slight, risks altering those performance characteristics in ways that can be felt by athletes and measured against the standard.
“The centre court location had a very uneven substrate,” Stringer explains. “As a FIBA-approved system, it needs a certain amount of spring. We needed to use a reliable product where the floor would not alter, and it had to be consistent, it has to have a consistent amount of spring.”
The team needed a subfloor material that could do two things simultaneously: correct the unevenness of the base, and provide the structural rigidity required to support a high- performance sports surface without introducing any variability of its own.
THE SOLUTION: STRUCTAPANELTO THE RESCUE
After evaluating their options, the Creative Flooring Solutions team selected Porta’s STRUCTApanel Smooth as the subfloor solution. Manufactured in Australia using sustainable, certified plantation pine, STRUCTApanel is a high-performance structural panel engineered for strength, dimensional consistency, and compliance across a wide range of applications. Its flat, knot-free surface, free from splits or delamination, and its H2 termite treatment make it a trusted choice for projects where long-term reliability is non-negotiable.
For the Hoop City project, the installation team used two layers of STRUCTApanel installed in a cross-laminated configuration.
This approach served a dual purpose: building up the substrate to correct the uneven base, while at the same time dramatically increasing the rigidity of the floor structure as a whole.
“We chose to use STRUCTApanel to build it up, because of its substrate, structure, squareness, and the reliability of it being an Australian-made product,” says Stringer. “We used a cross-lamination of two layers of STRUCTApanel Smooth 12mm boards, so that we could both straighten and stiffen the floor base.”
The rigidity of the completed subfloor was a critical requirement. A floor that flexes or shifts, even fractionally, beneath a FIBA-approved sports surface will alter its performance characteristics, affecting the spring and response that athletes rely on.
With the cross-laminated STRUCTApanel base in place, the court was built to stay exactly as designed, day after day and game after game.
IN HIS OWN WORDS: CHRIS STRINGER ON PERFORMANCE AND RELIABILITY
For the team at Creative Flooring Solutions, one of the most compelling aspects of STRUCTApanel was its consistency, not just in terms of what the panel delivers, but in how reliably it delivers it, sheet after sheet, from the first panel laid to the last.
“The STRUCTApanel is consistent. Each sheet is exactly the same, time and time again,” Stringer says. “There is definitely a cost benefit with using this product, in that it is so reliable. You don’t need to cut it, adjust it, or remove sheets due to imperfections. From the first sheet of the day, until the last sheet of the day, all sheets are the same.”
This consistency has real-world implications for productivity and cost. In flooring installation, wasted time cutting or replacing irregular sheets accumulates quickly on a large court area.
STRUCTApanel’s dimensional accuracy and manufacturing precision meant the team could work efficiently and confidently from start to finish, a benefit that flows through to the client in both schedule and budget. With a tested screw-holding capacity of 1,800 N, well above the 1,100 N required by the Liveable Housing Design Standard, the panel also delivers a fixing strength that installers can depend on throughout the life of the floor.
It is a performance that clearly left an impression. When asked whether the product met expectations, Stringer’s answer left no room for ambiguity.
“We plan on using the STRUCTApanel wherever possible. Wherever we need to have subfloor preparation, levelling or adjusting the heights, it will always be our first option.”
BUILT TO LAST, AND BUILT RESPONSIBLY
Performance and sustainability are rarely in conflict when the right product is chosen, and the Hoop City project is a case in point.
For Creative Flooring Solutions, environmental responsibility was not an afterthought, it was a core requirement of the brief.
“Being environmentally friendly was extremely important with this project,” Stringer confirms. “With STRUCTApanel it is PEFC certified, and it gave us chain of custody.”
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) certification provides verified assurance that the timber used in STRUCTApanel comes from responsibly managed forests, with a documented chain of custody from source to site. For a project where environmental credentials were a stated priority, this certification provided exactly the confidence the client and contractor needed.
STRUCTApanel also contains a minimum average of 40% recycled timber, a meaningful contribution to reducing the environmental footprint of the build. Perhaps most impressively, the panels are designed to be fully reusable. Because the subfloor is screwed, not glued, or permanently fixed, the panels can be unscrewed and lifted out intact if the flooring system is ever removed or relocated.
“We could, if required, unscrew and pull these sheets up, and re-use them on another job if we needed to,” Stringer notes.
In an industry where material waste remains a persistent challenge, this kind of circularity, paired with recycled content and certified sourcing, represents a genuinely responsible approach to construction.
THE RESULT: A COURT BUILT TO PERFORM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL
The completed Hoop City centre court in Port Melbourne stands as a testament to what can be achieved when the right materials meet skilled tradecraft. The STRUCTApanel subfloor delivered the level, stable, and rigid base that the FIBA-approved sports surface required and did so with an efficiency that benefited the entire project.
The court is now built to remain exactly as designed, no movement, no variation, no compromise to the spring and performance characteristics that defi ne a world-class playing surface. From the moment the first panel was laid to the moment the final sports surface was completed, the goal was consistency, and that goal was achieved.
For Creative Flooring Solutions, the project has reinforced the place of STRUCTApanel in their toolkit. For Porta, it demonstrates the capability of Australian-made engineered timber products to meet the demanding requirements of elite sports infrastructure. And for Hoop City and the athletes who train on the court every day, it means a playing surface that delivers exactly what it promises.
STRUCTApanel is an Australian-made product by Porta, manufactured from sustainable, PEFC-certified plantation pine with a minimum average of 40% recycled timber, content. For more information, visit porta.com.au
