Exclusive: How the 2012 Olympic Stadium is being built

A third of the way through the build programme, the 2012 Olympic stadium is already the most iconic structure visible in Stratford. In the first in a series of Olympic site reports,  David Rogers  looks at progress on the showpiece arena.

Below: The last of the steel roof trusses are being slotted into place to form the ring of steel around the arena. Once the roof is up a web of cables will be slung into place above it.

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Ian Crockford has taken on some major projects in his career. His CV includes stints at Bechtel, where he worked on Disneyland Paris, and Mace, where he was in charge of the London Eye. But satisfying the hopes of a generation of children and millennium revellers pales into insignificance compared to the duty of delivering the Olympic dream.

As project sponsor for the Olympic Delivery Authority, Crockford is tasked with managing the construction of the venue that will form the centrepiece of the London 2012 Games. The flagship venue will host both the opening and closing ceremonies along with the week-long track and field events.

Work began on site last May when Keller began installing the 4,000 permanent piles that will form the 80,000-seat stadium's foundations. In October, the first steel was erected, reaching 35m above the ground and creating a visible landmark for miles. After that, steel terracing supports each weighing 35t were lifted into place above the podium level to hold the 55,000 seats in the upper tiers.

Now a third of the way into the construction programme, the structure looks like a stadium already and stands out as a symbol of the country's status as the host nation, and at the moment stands alone as a recognisable venue on the wider site which still resembles a work in progress.

Wembley hangover

In the aftermath of Wembley, Crockford acknowledges that getting people wanting to work on another high-profile venue was hard.

But Team Stadium, the Sir Robert McAlpine-led group behind the 2012 stadium, has so far been doing what it did at the Emirates for Arsenal - quietly getting on with the job.

Interestingly, Crockford points out that McAlpine winning the work wasn't quite the shoo-in many at the time thought it had been. A US team bid for it and so did Beijing Construction Company - the firm behind the Bird's Nest, the centrepiece of the last Olympics.

Crockford says the job is on time to meet its June 2011 deadline and while winter winds and February's heavy snow meant some slippage, the team has caught up.

Compared to other significant stadia, it is much smaller - befitting its sustainable credentials.

Crockford says that if the 2012 stadium was to replicate its Sydney 2000 counterpart in size, the ODA would have had to deck over the rivers, which surround the site, to their halfway mark.

At peak, when the electricians and pipe-fitters get drafted on to the job, the number of workers will hit 600. In Beijing, the workforce was measured in the thousands. Wembley had 4,000 at its peak.

At the moment, the main stadium is a very lean 400 and Crockford recalls a recent visit by IOC inspectors who were shocked at how quiet the site seemed to be. "I think they were expecting similar numbers to what they saw in Beijing. They were asking 'where is everybody?'," he explains.

Concrete columns

Bryne Bros has been making the concrete columns and rakers, which are manufactured in-situ at Aggregate Industries' batching plant just a couple of hundred yards away from the venue. Concrete terracing has been made by Tarmac and ferried in from plants at Somerset and Peterborough.

And in a spot high in the south-western corner three different sets of seating have been bolted into place for trialling.

Eight tower cranes dominate the site but these will be coming down in the next few months when the last of 28 steel roof trusses, each weighing 90t and manufactured at Watson Steel's yard up in Bolton, is slotted into place. More than half have been fitted to date and this ring of steel will help form the roof for the stadium. Steel is being used sparingly - 10,000t compared to the 47,000t required for Beijing - which is in keeping with the recyclable quality of the venue.

Crockford says lifting the cable net roof into place is the next major part of the job and, once the bowl is completed this October, work will begin this December.

The cable net will be tied back to the truss at 28 points and then strand jacked into place in an operation which will lift the roof from ground level to its final position 30m in the air. The operation is expected to take three months to complete.

"We're not just building an athletics stadium, we're also building a huge theatre," he adds.

The cable-net roof will stretch 28m around the stadium and provide protection for two-thirds of the spectators. Once the roof is up an additional giant web of cables to move sets for the opening and closing ceremonies will be slung into place above it.

Floodlights

At the edge of the truss will be a series of floodlights which will be fixed on once it is in place. Workers from electrical contractor T Clarke are already on site, but the main M&E work will not begin in earnest until later this year.

Crockford says special security measures have been designed - he declines to say what they are - for the host of dignitaries who will attend the events but for those contractors hoping to cash in on a mountain of fit-out work, much of this will be confined to a section in the West Stand where the corporate hospitality will be allocated. Crockford says testing and commissioning will begin towards the end of next year.

Olympic flame

He still doesn't know whether the Olympic flame will be in or out - but he has already built in enough structural load to take a 150m-high tower along with gas pipes in case LOCOG, the company that will actually run the Games, decides that is what it wants.

At a guess, it will be out - the thinking being that the tower will be a reminder to everyone that, once the paraphernalia of the Olympics has been taken down, the Games were actually held here.

One of the very last tasks Crockford will be involved in is deciding what sort of grass to put in place.

The stadium will either have a permanent infield or the palletised system in use at the Millennium Stadium.

In keeping with the demountable aspects of the stadium, the latter is the favourite. This will go in at the very end ahead of the series of test events - one of which will be an athletics meeting.

It's difficult to see how Crockford could top being the man in charge of building the 2012 stadium but there is one job he his keeping his eye on.

A Liverpool FC fan, he like many is wondering if the club's planned new stadium will ever get built.

If it does, would he fancy being in charge? "Yeah," he says after a moment's thought. "Put that in."

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FactFile

Client: Olympic Delivery Authority

Cost: £496m

Main contractor: Team Stadium (Sir Robert McAlpine/Populous/AYH)

Steel: Watson Steel

Concrete: Byrne Bros

Electrical: T Clarke

Mechanical: Imtech Meica

Piling: Keller

Enabling/Groundworks/Drainage: Keltbray