Pioneering stadium design with sustainability, simplicity, and purpose in mind
Preparations for the Brisbane 2032 Summer Olympics offer Queensland the ideal opportunity to address sustainability and carbon neutrality in venue construction. The first phase of redeveloping the existing venue, Browne Park, includes the Western Grandstand, a new three-storey facility providing club services, corporate areas, and 4,000 seats.
In partnership with Theca/Rubner Holzbau, we designed an innovative and aesthetically pleasing timber roof for the stadium, framed with glued-laminated (glulam) timber beams. Structural loads, span dimensions, and fire requirements often limit roof construction solutions to concrete and steel, but the opportunity to construct the roof in timber was considered feasible despite its location in a cyclonic area. Analysis of both the timber and steel solutions found that while timber had a marginally higher capital cost, it had a fundamentally better performance for carbon emissions. A 400-tonne net saving in CO2 content is the annual equivalent of removing 40 cars from the road.
The pioneering design of the timber roof allows for a 12-metre cantilever over the grandstand and addresses sustainability in venue construction—making the finished grandstand one of the first timber-roofed stadiums in Queensland, and the longest cantilevered timber structure in Australia.
At a Glance
- Offices
- Client
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- Cox Architecture
- Partners
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- Theca Timber
- Architect
- Cox Architecture
- Image Credit
- Cox Architecture
Meet Our Team
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David Sheikh
Principal, Senior Structural Project Technical Lead, Group Technical Leader
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John Avramiotis
Associate, Security Group Leader
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Glenn Hamilton
Fire Engineering Group Leader
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Megan Kraft
Branch Manager, Wide Bay / Rockhampton
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Patrick Chambers
Associate Director, Mechanical Project Technical Lead/Australian Discipline Leader
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Karim Shehab
Principal, Building Services Group Leader, QLD
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Scott Stieper
Senior Audio-Visual Engineer, Smart Buildings
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Daniel Webster
Defence Market Leader, WA
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Andrew Williams
Principal, Specialist Services Group Leader, QLD
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