THE BRIEFING
HVAC&R • the built environment • sustainable design
Pooled resources
What’s behind the HVAC at the Olympic Aquatic centre? A combination of natural ventilation
and natural refrigerants.
The Aquatics Centre is the second largest of London’s Olympic venues.
With all the medals tallied, athletes returned home and
television stations back to their regular programming, it’s
time to pack away the Olympic excitement for another four
years. What remains, however, is the sustainability legacy
of London’s 2012 Olympic Games.
A major part of this legacy is built into the second-largest
structure in London 2012’s suite of Olympic venues: the Aquatics
Centre. The first building encountered by visitors to Olympic
Park, the centre boasts green credentials to go with its cool
aesthetic.
The design team at Zaha Hadid Architects accepted the challenge
of maintaining the facility’s impressive façade while limiting its
environmental footprint.
The wave-shaped roof houses two 50m pools, with a ceiling of
sustainably sourced timber. Waste off-cuts were limited by using
exact-sized timber slats and fingerjointing, so different lengths of
timber could be used.
Natural ventilation replaced mechanical and electrical
equipment in the temporary stands. The centre’s HVAC system
uses natural refrigerant ammonia, which eliminated the need for
HFCs and also led to improved energy efficiency. The Olympic
Energy Centre and Athletes Village also used ammonia, and
across the entire Olympic project, the investment in ammonia
chillers cost more than $1.5 million.
The venue uses natural ventilation and an ammonia HVAC system.
On the construction front, the Aquatics Centre was built using
a Y-beam system that saved 1632 m of steel, compared with the
original design. The exterior is made of precast modular blocks
of concrete, reducing construction emissions and eliminating the
need for painting. And most of the building materials, including
the 866,000 tiles needed to line the pool and locker rooms,
were delivered by train instead of truck.
Yet it’s not just design and construction that contribute to
the centre’s green cred; the facility’s operation plays a big part,
too. Chemical parameters were closely controlled to minimise
chemical usage and reduce disinfection by-products. A specially
designed treatment system recovered backwash water, which is
then used for toilet flushing throughout the complex. ❚
Would you like to know more?
For information about the energy modelling and
lessons learned from the Aquatics Centre construction,
go to www.london2012.com/learninglegacy
s e p t e mb e r 2 0 1 2 • Eco l i b r i u m
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