An amphitheatre for cycling: the design, analysis and construction of the London 2012 Velodrome

There is something rather deep-rooted about our desire to produce buildings choreographed to focus the attention of the spectator on the activities within. The use of a circular geometry to achieve this goes back a long way, from Stonehenge and Celtic stone circles to the Pantheon and the Colosseum,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Structural engineer (London, England : 1988) England : 1988), 2012-06, Vol.90 (6), p.13-25
Main Authors: Wise, Chris, Weir, Andrew, Oates, George, Winslow, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Athletics
Curved
Perception
Spectators
Stadia
Stone
Three dimensional
Velodromes
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Summary:There is something rather deep-rooted about our desire to produce buildings choreographed to focus the attention of the spectator on the activities within. The use of a circular geometry to achieve this goes back a long way, from Stonehenge and Celtic stone circles to the Pantheon and the Colosseum, via Santa Maria del Fiore to St Peter's Square in the Vatican City, to bullrings, soccer stadia, athletics tracks and velodromes. For example, in an experiment we carried out for BBC's Secrets of Lost Empires in the 1990s in which a moving roof was gradually pulled out over a bullring (which was standing in for the Colosseum), the change of perception away from the sky and on to the centre of the circle was remarkably powerful. The focusing geometry of the enclosed curved three-dimensional space having a direct eff ect on the emotional reaction of the spectator and no doubt the participants as well.
ISSN:1466-5123