London 2012 Basketball Arena

The London 2012 Basketball Arena was designed to be a temporary venue that was simple and fast to erect, and could sub-sequently be dismantled and re-used elsewhere. Though temporary, the arena brief required it to be a world-class sporting venue, with a 12,000 seat capacity. This made it the largest temporary event building built for any Olympic Games.

The large rectangular structure was built using a lightweight steel frame, and clad over with stretched PVC panels to form a three-dimensional undulating pattern across all four elevations. This process allowed erection of the envelope to be completed in six weeks.

Cleverly designed with economy in mind, the external visual effect is achieved with only 3 variations to the vertical fabric cladding module. By turning the modules upside down and altering the relative position of adjacent modules, this achieved the effect of a completely random pattern with no two elevations appearing to repeat the modulation.

At over 35m high (equivalent to a seven-storey building), the internal column free structure spanned a space of 115m in length and 100m in width. The translucent external fabric allowed daylight to filter into the concourse area by day, and provided a screen to project lighting effects in the evening. This resulted in in a dynamic illumination with saturated colours and silhouettes of the steel frame, creating the biggest light installation on the Olympic Park.

Robert Albanes was the on-site Client NEC3 Supervisor throughout the 15 month construction period of the arena.

Client:

Olympic Delivery Authority

Location:

Stratford, London, UK

Contract Value:

£60m

Completion:

2012

Designed by:

Sport Concepts

Project Architect

Robert Albanes

Structural Engineer:

Halcrow Yolles

Mechanical Engineer:

ARUP

Electrical Engineer:

ARUP

Project Management:

MacKenzie

Cost Advise:

Franklin & Andrews

Role / involvement:

Full Services including Detail Design, Coordination and site supervision

NEC 3 Supervisor

Robert Albanes

Designed by:

Wilkinson Eyre

Contractor:

Barr Construction, Volker Fitzpatric, Morrisons,Slick Seating, Mighty

Project Management:  CLM

Cost Advise:

CLM

Structural Engineer:

SKM

Mechanical Engineer:

SKM

Electrical Engineer:

SKM

Role / involvement:

Client NEC 3 Site Supervisor

Use:

New build 12,000 seat basketball arena