Construction and infrastructure

Olympian Heights - Challenges for the Built Environment forum was run in partnership with the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE).

This round table discussion brought together three of the UK's foremost experts on stadium design and sporting infrastructure to discuss the challenges of creating functional, sustainable and imaginative sporting structures in the 21st Century.

The three main speakers were Professor Roger Plank, Head of Architecture at the University of Sheffield and chair of the IStructE's sustainable construction panel; Stephen Morley, senior design engineer of the structural design consultancy Bianchi Morley and adviser to the International Olympic Committee; and Tanya Ross, an associate with Buro Happold Consulting Engineers who works as part of the London 2012 bid team.

The forum was held as part of Engineering in the Olympics, a 2004 campaign run by the etb in partnership with the British Olympic Association.

Click here to download the report

Sporting infrastructure projects are big business. Manchester estimates that the 2002 Commonwealth Games generated £2.7million for the local economy for every £1million invested plus a further £50 million in visitor spending and created 6,300 full time jobs.

The Olympic Games are even bigger and delivering a successful Games provides host cities with huge kudos on a global stage.  Of equal importance is what they leave behind long after the athletes and media have left town.

Following the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee's future focus is the creation of Games that leave the host city with a positive legacy in terms of venues, infrastructure, expertise and experience.

But what are the structural and civil engineering challenges of developing any large sports based infrastructure project - let alone an Olympics?

• Building safe, imaginative, sustainable structures is a big enough challenge but how are waste, water, and energy management processes to be successfully integrated into the programme?
• What represents global best practice? What is 'good engineering'?
• How, in practice, is the gap between the rhetoric and reality of sustainability to be bridged?
• Architecture and engineering; a conversation of the deaf?
• How does Britain's engineering legacy inform its future, and can the UK meet the sporting infrastructure challenges a winning bid will provide?

A few facts...

• The investment needed to stage the 2004 Athens Olympics is expected to exceed £3.4 billion. This includes £2.1 billion of Government investment - largely directed towards infrastructure and new sports facilities.
• The British Government believes that staging the Olympic Games in London in 2012 would involve expenditure of £2.4 billion, and involve one of the largest urban regeneration projects ever undertaken in the UK.
• In preparation for the Sydney Olympics in 2000, £1.36 billion was spent on venues and infrastructure. With more than 60% of the money coming from public funds. 

The Olympic Games already present significant opportunities for the science, engineering and technology sectors in the UK:

• The British engineers WS Atkins (link to 60 second interview) are project managers for the Olympic Village in Athens, building 2,300 homes in a £178 million project.
• Sport Concepts, a UK architectural practice, is leading a team of designers in the construction of the 8,000 seat Handball and Taekwondo arena for the Athens Olympic Games.
• Connell Mott MacDonald, the British design engineers, were responsible for the design of the infrastructure of the Olympic village for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
• Balfour Beatty, one of the UK's leading construction firms, built the 85,000 seat Olympic stadium for the Atlanta Olympics Games of 1996.

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