Dunc Gray Olympic Velodrome

Carried out scheme, detail design, documentation and project supervision on this project comprising of a restaurant, bar and club facilities along with Olympic grade cycling track all under one roof. The licenced club and bar rooms are located under the raised entrance roadway. The building is sited within a parkland recreation area on top of a major hill position.

This project has a natural ventilation and smoke management system through the ridge of the building. The tortoise shell shaped roof has a fluctuating perimeter elevation with an irregular sectional external gutter profile and offset gutter sumps. A unique system of small weirs at regular intervals was calculated to slow the flow and maintain a water head over the siphon outlets ensuring quick removal. The velodrome has a siphonic rainwater drainage draining into a storm water detention pond through energy dissipation pits. The trade waste system and gravity mains drained the sewer system to an extended Authority sewer main. A high pressure low volume compressed air system was designed with PLC controlled regulators allowing a low pressure supply for juniors and a high pressure supply for seniors and Olympians. The project included hot and cold water, natural gas and sanitary draining. The pond water storage was recycled for use as parkland irrigation. The Arup hydraulic services discipline was selected as engineers by the Architect partly because of their ability for innovation. An excellent working relationship was maintained with both Architect and Project Manager.

A sprinkler system was engineered under the wooden track space. It had 50m extra length fire hose reels to cover track centre as well as a a 100mm external Authority ring main used for external fire hydrants, designed to circumnavigate the building externally. Along with an aspirating ‘Vesda’ smoke detection system within the supported ‘V’ reflectors at high level, fire extinguishers and evacuation management plans complimented a fire engineered solution. Because of the span and unique design of the building, the design did not conform to prescriptive codes and so an alternative fire solution was applied under the BCA.

Architect: Ryder SJP Partership
Client: 2000 Olympic Organising Committee
Photos: Creativity by Richard Drew