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 


Aerial view of the handball arena


B


ack in 1967 four teachers from Liverpool – Phil Holden, Chris Powell, Jeff Rowland and Andy Smith – formed the British Handball Association (BHA). A year later, the


BHA joined the International Handball Federation (IHF) but take-up of a sport with professional leagues in many European countries has been painfully slow ever since. There are more than 150 members of the IHF and when


Denmark played France in the 2011 world handball final, half of the Danish population watched the match on television, but when London won the bid to stage the 2012 Olympics, there were just an estimated 600 handball players in the UK. A GB side was committed to taking part in 2012, but the chal-


lenge for the London organising committee, LOCOG, was how to justify building a venue fit for the Olympics, for a sport that had virtually no national profile in the UK. No official figure is available for the cost of the handball venue


– although £24 million is the industry estimate – and finding a secondary use for the stadium became a priority for a stadium that in 2007 was originally proposed to seat 10,000 people.


That year, a shortlist of seven multi-disciplinary integrated


design teams were invited to bid for the commission to carry out all the design and planning work by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). A team led by MAKE Architects pipped a field including Bligh Voller Nield, David Morley Architects, Grimshaw, 3DReid and Sports Concepts to the prize job. The first images of how the arena would look were unveiled


in August 2008, but as LOCOG and the ODA came under pressure to cut costs, a number of venues were redesigned and a full proposal for the handball arena did not emerge until February 2009. “This takes us a step closer towards a simple, sustainable and


flexible handball arena that works for Games and legacy,” says ODA chief executive, David Higgins, when the detailed plans were sent to the Greater London Authority for approval. The proposal sited the scheme in the west of the Olympic Park,


south of the hockey centre and just four minutes away from the Olympic Village. As part of the cost-cutting however, the capacity was reduced to 7,000 seats during the Games and the goalball


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