The David Beckham Academy provides a soccer-based sports education facility for 15,000 children on an annual basis, offering a five-day football training camp for children aged eight to 15. The Academy works on the ethos of hard work, dedication and teamwork that helped Beckham himself become one of the world’s most successful footballers. It aims to set the highest football, social and academic standards by promoting healthy living, as well as generating a positive attitude to sports for its students.
Designed to be a temporary structure to be used for a period of five to ten years, the Academy has become a key development in the redevelopment of the Greenwich Peninsula. The building is positioned at the north west of the site, facing both the 02 Arena and North Greenwich Station.
The Academy consists of two full sized indoor pitches and a single storey, 2,200m2 pavilion building that will house a reception area, classrooms, kitchen and dining facilities, changing, kit and shower rooms; as well as a medical and physiotherapy suite, staff accommodation, administration accommodation and a single retail unit. The configuration of the pavilion building, which is 120m long by 20m wide, has been designed to accommodate site constraints.
The pitches are enclosed by an arched, steel-framed building clad with a tensile fabric to allow them to be used all year round. In order to ensure that the Academy was opened on time, the steel-frame/fabric roof solution was chosen by the team so that it could be erected rapidly, enabling the construction of the external walls and internal fit-out work to proceed quickly.
Date: Completed 2006
