An amphitheatre for cycling: the design, analysis and construction of the London 2012 Velodrome

The UK Olympic Stadium, which will host athletic events and the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has developed around an innovative use of permanent and temporary structures designed to meet the 80 000 Games spectator capacity and a 25 000 Legacy spectator capacity.

The Aquatics Centre is a centrepiece of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and undoubtedly will be one of the greatest legacies left to London as a lasting symbol of this event, which will transform East London. The facility has been designed primarily as an iconic legacy building with all Olympic Mode add-ons as temporary elements designed to be simple, functional and as economic as possible whilst maintaining the operational requirements of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

An excellent example of sustainable legacy design, the Copper Box (Figure 1) is one of the jewels in the new Olympic Park. This paper looks at the design of the building; home to handball, goalball and the fencing elements of the Modern Pentathlon during the 2012 Games. It begins with an explanation of the initial concepts that drove the design of the scheme and goes on to show how those concepts were realised as the eventual design solution. A more detailed description of the structural design is then provided, demonstrating how the development of this was also heavily infl uenced by the initial concepts. The paper concludes with an explanation of some of the more interesting and challenging aspects of the actual construction.