Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in advance of the final LONDON 2012 Olympic brief being issued, the London Aquatics Centre design originally proposed roughly 4,000 seats.  For the Olympics, a further 13,500 seats were needed.  Temporary ‘spectator wings’ were added to the building and included SPS Stadia + Arenas terraces as part of the design. The architects chose to use SPS with a factory-finished custom colour. The lively bright yellow linked to the LONDON 2012 branding, increased the spectator enjoyment and added interest for the media coverage of the event.

The temporary ‘frame wing’ seating stands were removed, unbolted and sold in their entirety, including the SPS terraces, during the building’s conversion to a public swimming pool after the Olympics ended, and before the Paralympics started, in-line with the LONDON 2012 Olympic organisers’ goal of creating an ongoing sporting legacy for London.

SPS Technology is committed to finding solutions for design challenges where traditional materials such as reinforced concrete or stiffened steel won’t work. Sandwich Plate System, SPS,  doesn’t crack, spall, rupture or separate and is both thin and very strong. SPS panels are fundamentally light-weight and slender in design while offering blast and ballistics protection. Compression, impact, flexure and permeability issues in traditional materials can be solved by using this simple transformational product, formed of two metal faceplates bonded by an elastomer core, Elastocore ®, manufactured by our partner BASF.

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