Anna Meares Velodrome

Abstract

The Anna Meares Velodrome (AMV) is Queensland’s first indoor velodrome, located on a sloping site alongside the Brisbane Super X BMX Track at Sleeman Sports Complex in Brisbane. The AMV was designed with the planning flexibility to not only host the track cycling competition for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth GamesTM, but to provide a legacy venue for track cycling and a range of other indoor sports and community uses. To provide the required planning flexibility with world-class spectator and user amenity, the AMV has a large column-free arena with an elliptical footprint. The arena roof clear spans up to 118 m between inclined perimeter supports, making it one of the largest clear-span roofs in Australia. The roof is gently curved in two directions, and the resulting saddle shape combined with the inclined perimeter walls creates a striking and memorable building, befitting the important role that the venue will play in 2018 and beyond. The building was successfully delivered quickly and to a tight budget, in large part due to the efficiency of the design of the steel roof and wall structure, and to the adoption of a ‘construction-led’ design approach. This approach ensured that the steel roof structure could be economically, safely and quickly fabricated and erected in parallel with the construction of the concrete substructure and bowl. The paper describes key aspects of the project, including some of the design innovations that played a crucial role in the successful delivery of the project and the realisation of the competition-winning architectural vision. These innovations included parametric design, geometric rationalisation, a ‘construction-led’ approach and structural design optimisation.