The London 2012 Olympic Athletes’ Village housed over 17,000 athletes during the Games before Legacy conversion into a residential community of over 3,000 homes. Robert Bird Group was responsible for all four of the Bovis Lend Lease plots (of about 1,400 homes).

Key technical challenges

Bovis Lend Lease approached RBG in late 2007 to investigate a range of options for the structure and building fabric. Our approach was to develop an ‘engineered chassis’ to form a base module that could be widely interpreted by a range of architect-led teams, whilst providing measurable benefits in product quality, procurement and construction cost.

The choice of structural typology was impacted by the sharp exchange rate fluctuation in 2008, which changed the structural procurement strategy from load-bearing pre-cast (from the Euro Zone) to adoption of a PT in-situ frame. This change took place during the piled foundation installation, as the completion date was absolute. Simple transition between Olympic and Legacy modes was achieved by aligning perimeter columns with the slab edge. This allowed internal division walls to be adjusted to suit the different inhabitation layouts.

Slab edge hardware (for PT anchorages, thermal isolation and cladding attachment cast-ins) was fully coordinated with rebar and proprietary shear rails on a total-component-integration principle to avoid clashes and unplanned site activities.