STADIA
Main pic and near right: Built to host the FINA World Swimming Championships,
the Sports Complex in Dubai converts to a multi-purpose dry sport/exhibition arena
A LIVING LEGACY
FaulknerBrowns’ partner Mike Hall compares the design of two very different wet and dry facilities in which a common philosophy for extended use can be found
been an opportunistic time for design- ers and sports planners to showcase some fine sporting venues at the Olympic Park and deliver the legacy that has evaded many post-Olympic cities. However, the post-Games day-to-day
W
usage of an Olympic facility represents more than 99 per cent of the life of the building and is often on a vastly different scale to usage during the Games. Many designers claim to have designed sports buildings with legacy in mind but, in my opinion, few have achieved it. Consideration and prioritisation of
the critical success factors for any build- ing should ensure that designing for legacy use is inherent within the solution from the outset of the project and not an after-thought. Take the Manchester Aquatics Cen-
tre for example. Designed for the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the task was to reconcile the requirements of a high per- formance competition pool with those for an attractive and easily accessible public asset after the Games. A competition pool requires pri-
vacy with minimal daylight to control glare, along with large volumes to meet
ith less than 450 days to go before London plays host to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it’s
international standards and large spec- tator numbers – up to 2,500 for the Commonwealth Games. A community facility, on the other hand, requires pub- lic accessibility with intimate volumes and natural daylight to provide a warm and friendly internal environment. The design of the aquatics centre re-
spected and integrated these two diverse sets of criteria and the success of the building has been proven year on year, since completion, in both competition and legacy modes.
SPORTS PROJECTS Our practice has recently completed/de- signed four major sports facilities, all of which have hosted, or will host, world championship events. The critical issue in the design of these venues was to ensure their success for the limited time period of the competitions, as well as the remaining life of the facility. These include: • Surrey Sports Park for the University of Surrey, UK which hosted the Women’s Rugby World Cup in August 2010 • Hamdam bin Mohammed bin Rashid Sports Complex in Dubai, UAE, which hosted, and was designed for, the FINA World Swimming Championships in December 2010 • Omnisportscentrum at Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, which played host to the
34 Read Sports Management online
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UCI World Track Cycling Champion- ships in March 2011 • Valley White Water Centre, Brox- bourne, UK for the London 2012 Olympic Games (designed) – which is already open to the general public for use before the Games commence
There are some particular lessons from Dubai and Apeldoorn where technical innovation, combined with a strong op- erational perspective, has underpinned the desire to achieve the facilities’ effec- tive longevity.
HAMDAN BIN MOHAMMED BIN RASHID SPORTS COMPLEX, DUBAI In 2007, the Midde Eastern region set its sights on hosting major global sport- ing events, such as the FIFA World Cup and potentially a future Olympic Games. Securing the FINA World Swimming Championships was a further step- ping stone in this process and as part of this aspiration the seating capacity of the aquatics centre grew from 6,000 to 15,000 seats during the design process. Providing a venue for a major interna-
tional swimming event has, traditionally, gone down one of two routes: a tempo- rary pool in an existing arena, making use of permanent spectator support facilities or temporary seating around an outdoor pool where the climate and
Issue 2 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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