ICE Library's guide to Olympic and Paralympic Games

Welcome to the ICE Library’s short guide to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The guide focuses on:

  • Sustainability
  • Venues and infrastructure
  • Budget and procurement
  • Previous Olympic games
  • General Olympics literature

Sustainability

H Hartman, London 2012 - Sustainable Design: Delivering a Games Legacy. Chichester: John Wiley, 2012

London 2012, London 2012: Towards a Sustainable Games. 2007.

Venues and infrastructure

Budget and procurement

The budget for the Games and progress on the works were kept under review by the National Audit Office and two committees of the House of Commons: Public Accounts and Culture, and Media and Sport. Their reports can be found on the NAO website.

ODA procured most venues and infrastructure under ICE’s suite of NEC3 contracts. ODA’s procurement team explain how all NEC3 contracts were completed on time and within budget in a free special issue of the NEC users’ group newsletter.

Previous Olympic Games

As well as the London 2012, ICE has published papers about structures for previous games, which can be searched through the ICE Virtual Library. A few other references include:

Sydney 2000

  • P Bingham Hall, Olympic architecture: building Sydney 2000. Sydney: The Watermark Press, 1999
  • Institution of Engineers Australia, Olympics 2000: a comprehensive look the engineering achievements at Sydney's Olympic venues. Engineers Australia Special Supplement, August 2000
  • Ove Arup Partnership, [Sydney Olympics 2000 case studies]. Arup Focus, September 2000

Athens, 2004

  • N Train, Athens Olympics: The race for completion, The Structural Engineer, Vol. 82, No. 9, May 4, 2004, pp. 14-19
  • Construction for the Olympic Games, Concrete Engineering International, Vol. 9. No. 1, Spring 2005, pp. 10-11
  • M Leftly, Some legacy [Athens 2004], Building, 18 November 2005, pp. 22-28
  • J M Frantzeskatis, Athens 2004 Olympic Games: Transportation planning, simulation and traffic management, ITE Journal, Vol. 76, No. 10, October 2006, pp. 26-32

Beijing, 2008

  • M Arkinstall, Structural design and optimisation of the Beijing National Olympic Swimming Centre, Australian Journal of Structural Engineering, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2006, pp. 181-190
  • D McCorquodale, Solutions for a Modern City: Arup in Beijing. London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd., 2008
  • Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, Olympic architecture: Beijing 2008. Beijing: Architecture and Building Press; Basel: Birkhauser, 2008

General Olympics literature

  • M Polley, The British Olympics: Britain's Olympic heritage, 1612-2012. Swindon: English Heritage, 2011
  • T Dyckhoff, The architecture of London 2012: vision, design and legacy. (An official London 2012 publication.) Chichester: John Wiley, 2012
  • R Imrie, Regenerating London: governance, sustainability and community in a global city. London and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 2009
  • J R Gold, Olympic cities: city agendas, planning and the world's games, 1896-2016. 2nd ed. London & New York: Routledge, 2011. (Also includes some details of the plans for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games)

There are a number of other relevant online sources for further information:

Can’t find what you are looking for?

Call the ICE Library team on +44 (0)20 7665 2251 or email library@ice.org.uk