Ravenscraig - steeled for success!

25/08/2009

Buro Happold erects trusses for new sports centre built on former steel works

Work continues apace on the new £31million sports facility situated on the former Ravenscraig steelworks in North Lanarkshire: the steelworks are currently being erected. Part of a larger masterplan for the regeneration of this area of Scotland, this new indoor sports facility which will serve the local community as well provide a training ground for competitive athletes, will feature an indoor artificial football pitch, a sports hall, gymnasium and an athletics hall, shorter span structures housing changing, dance and office facilities as well as outdoor pitches which will include 1x full size artificial and six 5-a-side pitches. 

With the design and choice of materials influenced by the site’s historic links to the steel industry, international multidisciplinary engineering consultancy Buro Happold has designed trusses constructed from rolled column and angle sections to form the main sports halls giving them the economical structure of a stepped roof profile with bolted connections for easy on site assembly. In the football hall the trusses span 72m, and vary in profile from flat to arched, to form the profile of the building which reflects the internal headroom requirements of the football pitch. 

All of the main halls use profiled metal cladding supported on purlins, with clear polycarbonate used for the roof northlights and the north elevations. The changing rooms and office block employs a composite beam and column structure to support slabs and flat roof decks.

Due to its location on a former steelworks site, the ground works were complicated by the extensive tunnels, basements, foundations and pipework underground. Buro Happold’s ground preparation therefore included dynamic compaction and the excavation and removal of basements and machinery.  This provided the formation for the ground bearing foundations for the building, and for the car park and pitches.

Buro Happold principal Rod Manson said “Whilst the project location proved quite challenging at times with the difficult legacy left by the site’s former owners, it’s been a real honour for Buro Happold to be involved which a project that has the capacity to change so many of the local and regional communities’ lives through the medium of sport. Who knows which future Scottish sporting champions will be produced by Ravenscraig – success stories that we, Buro Happold, will have played our part in.”

The indoor sports centre project which was designed by Populous, has been made possible by funding from North Lanarkshire Council and Ravenscraig Limited with an additional £7.3 million backing by the Scottish Government, through the national sports agency sportscotland. It is also one of ten projects to receive stage two approval under the Government's £50 million National and Regional Sports Facilities Strategy (NRSFS), which includes £21.2 million of sportscotland Lottery funding.

One of the primary aims for the facility is that it will be as a key training ground for Scottish sportsmen and women bidding to take part in the London 2012 Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. Prior to this Lanarkshire will host the International Children’s Games in 2011 and Ravenscraig will be the main athletics focus for the Games.

Project team

Client:

North Lanarkshire Council

Architect:

Populous

Buro Happold services:

Ground engineering, structural engineering, building services engineering, fire engineering, indoor climate simulations, sustainability assessments