Delivering London 2012: temporary venues

This paper describes the innovative and complex process of planning and designing a major programme of temporary venues for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It sets out the unique challenges of designing high-quality temporary venues and at the same time meeting sustainability, technical and cost parameters. The paper explains the early decision-making process and key drivers that influenced the overall approach to deciding whether venues would be permanent, temporary or a mix of both. It also discusses some of the issues related to temporary as opposed to reusable, demountable or relocatable. The Basketball Arena is used as a case study to demonstrate how an innovative approach has delivered significant cost and programme benefits and to share the key lessons learned.