The London Stadium, as it is now called, is home to football club West Ham United but remains a world-class venue for athletics.
We were involved at all stages of the project, from initial feasibility studies to site supervision throughout the construction phase, and reviewed all services including architectural, civil, structural, mechanical electrical, public health and fire engineering.
Our remit was extended to include the role of category III checker of the roof in legacy mode. The new roof is a gravity-stressed cable net structure that covers approximately 46,500m2, far greater than the 25,000m2 provided by the original roof, and required strengthening works to accommodate the additional loads.
This task involved reviewing the structural design philosophy, producing independent structural analysis models, calculating applied roof loads, and checking all structural elements (including connection forces) and the adequacy of foundation remedial works.
Our review of the proposed roof design added significant value to the project by reducing the weight of steelwork, achieving a saving of £30M.
Another crucial aspect of the project was the analysis of spectator movement. Our specialist pedestrian modelling team used both static analysis and dynamic modelling to evaluate the capacity of the infrastructure to permit safe access to/from the stadium, spectator circulation around the outer podium and emergency evacuation.
Our analysis demonstrated that the podium and the six permanent bridge approaches would have sufficient capacity to accommodate spectator flows during normal operations and in the event of an emergency for both sporting events and concerts at the stadium.