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With the Olympics over and the Paralympic Games now underway, we look at a different kind of winning performance at the London 2012 Games. British company, Atkins is one of the world’s leading design and engineering consultancies and is the official engineering services provider for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. From helping transform derelict industrial land and historical landmarks into world-class sporting venues to improving vital transport links, their technical expertise has touched almost every element of London’s infrastructure.  

Site map north facing port 

Multi-disciplinary services driven by sustainability

At the Olympic Park, Atkins provided multidisciplinary engineering infrastructure design, project managed the enabling works, site clearance and remediation, and carried out the environmental impact assessment. They also provided engineering design services for about 100 UK-wide temporary venues, undertaking building services design, civil & structural engineering, acoustics, fire, utilities infrastructure design, and accessibility services. Sustainability has been a key driver for the design work, particularly the importance of reducing the embodied carbon and impact from materials used. 

From brown to green

Atkins oversaw the removal of pollutants from 246 hectares of heavily contaminated land which had been used for industrial activity for over 200 years. This was followed by designing and supervising the construction of the development platform on which venues and facilities for the Olympic and Paralympic Games would be built. Atkins was appointed as the landscape engineer for the north of the Olympic Park and supervisor for the south of the Park, as well as providing river edge engineering park-wide including the design of the largest wetland and wet woodland planting scheme in the UK ever. In addition, they played a key role in the relocation of wildlife and the creation of new habitats in accordance with the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Biodiversity Action Plan. 

Park Aerial 

Improving connectivity

Atkins' engineers worked with architects to design the bridges in the north of the Park – to enable access for workers to create the infrastructure and venues, to provide access for crowds of Games-time visitors, and to provide long-term community facilities. Atkins has worked on a number of projects which will improve transport and public space around London during and beyond the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Their wider-London work has focussed on the areas of rail, aviation, pedestrian modelling and public realm. 

Innovation for temporary venues

Some of the unique designs for the venues include the equestrian arena and the table tennis venue. Atkins designed a solution to create a temporary, level, Olympic-standard field of play for the London 2012 jumping, dressage, eventing, and Paralympic equestrian events, while avoiding any damage to the fragile, historic Greenwich Park site. At the ExCeL centre they redesigned the cooling system to ensure that the thousands of spectators would be kept cool but the air flow speeds would not affect play. 

stadium aerial view 

For more information about Atkins' involvement in the Games preparation go here: http://www.atkinsglobal.com/twenty-twelve and see a short video here: 

Atkins in Asia Pacific
From a global company of about 17,500 employees, Atkins has over 1,200 architects, planners, landscape designers, engineers, consultants and support staff in the Asia Pacific region and has recently established a presence in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Atkins Group website: www.atkinsglobal.com