London 2012 preparing its demountable Olympic stadium

The London 2012 Olympic stadium is a £450 million project. The athletics stadium will allow for 80′000 seats, and it will be converted into a more easily maintained 25′000 seat venue after the Games.

The lighting and sound systems will be supported by a roof that will stretch around the Stadium. Of course, it will also provide cover and a base for special effects during the ceremonies. The Stadium will be built to international track and field standards for athletes.

The Olympic Stadium will be located on an island at the south of the Olympic Park within easy walking distance of the Olympic Village and warm-up facilities. The site will be surrounded on three sides by waterways.

Construction officially started on the Stadium on 22 May 2008, and the foundations are due to be completed in August 2008. Over a thousand workers will help build the venue. The construction should finish by 2011 in time for test events to take place before the Games start.

All Athletics events will take place in the Stadium as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

After the Games, the Stadium will be transformed into a 25′000 capacity venue that will host a variety of sporting, educational, cultural and community events. It will be a venue for memorable sporting moments during 2012, but it will continue to add value to the local community for years to come.

The demountable stadium concept was developed in response to an International Olympic Committee (IOC) commissioned report that recommended Olympic venues leave a better legacy for future use. Beijing’s National Stadium will also have some demountable seats.

For the Games, the 80,000 seat arena is designed with athletes in mind. This means making sure it is not a wind tunnel and that it creates the feeling of an enclosed space so that it can retain the unique noise and atmosphere created by an Olympic audience.

An inspirational indicative design has already been developed by London-based Foreign Office Architects, with HOK Sport, perhaps the world’s most renowned stadium specialist.

The result is organic architecture that rises out of the ground, crowned by a spectacular array of roof sections that suggest the rippling muscles of an athlete.

The top two tiers of the steel and concrete structure would be dismantled leaving the lowest tier. The roof will be lowered to fit over the reduced structure but enough room would be left to refit a second tier should an increased capacity of 40,000 to 45,000 be needed.