Sustainability
By working closely with Hopkins, the architects, and Expedition, the engineers, we saved around 1,000 tonnes of structural steelwork and £1.5 million by redesigning the roof. Cable net roofs usually have a ring beam against which the cables are tensioned, like a tennis racket. We designed this out by using the bowl structure to take this load.
The result is that the roof weighs only 30kg per sq m, roughly half that of any other covered Velodrome, This is a key component in making the Velodrome the greenest venue on the Olympic Park.
Additional benefits of a lighter roof meant that the foundations sizes could be smaller and shallower, resulting in less concrete and a reduced carbon footprint as there was less excavation of contaminated materials from the landfill site below.
