Buildings Case study
Staying the
course
Creating a huge indoor arena for Olympic athletes was a challenging prospect.
But the use of passive engineering at Lee Valley athletics centre has proved
to be a success with its users while also gaining the highest rating for energy
efficiency, writes Simon Ellery
B
ritish Olympic medal hopers are hard at
work in preparation for the London games in
2012 – and, for some of them, the arrival of
a naturally ventilated, state-of-the-art indoor
stadium couldn’t have come sooner. Since it opened in
2007 the Lee Valley athletics centre in east London has
been used as a training base for a number of leading
athletes. But the indoor centre is not just renowned
for its air movement – its approach to environmental
engineering through integrated design has earned the
facility a rare grade ‘A’ energy performance rating.
Max Fordham Consulting Engineers worked with
David Morley Architects with the aim of producing
an exemplar of environmental responsibility. Despite
having to maintain high air quality for athletes training
and competing in different zones in the centre, the
facility produces very low levels of CO2 and is highly
energy efficient. This is achieved by innovative ‘passive’
The Lee Valley indoor
engineering and comes despite using existing building
athletics centre in east
services technology.
London (pictured here and
Max Fordham’s Dr Neil Smith says: “Our task was opposite) has been designed
to provide [athletes] with the required environmental
for use all year round. There
conditions to train to their peak performance.”
is also an adjacent outdoor
track (top of facing page)
However, the size of building needed to
accommodate a wide range of facilities – including the
only 200-metre, six-lane track in the south of England
– combined with very low occupancy when not used
for competitions, meant the project posed a serious
energy efficiency challenge.
“This had the potential to give it a large environmental
‘footprint’ in terms of the resources and energy used in >
www.cibsejournal.com June 2009 CIBSE Journal 41
CIBSEjun09 pp40-44 leevalley.indd 41 28/5/09 15:26:42
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