La Défense Aquatics Arena

In just a two-month makeover, the Paris venue for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert became the stage for many of the 2024 Games’ most eagerly awaited swimming competitions. The design challenge was to create an Olympic-class aquatics venue inside the 45,000-seat La Défense Arena, Europe’s largest multipurpose indoor arena, home to the rugby union club Racing 92 and also used for concerts. This transformation redefined the delivery of Olympic Aquatics competition venues for future Games. The transformation As part of its bid to be recognised as the most sustainable Games, Paris 2024 set out to limit new construction to a minimum and deploy temporary structures and overlays for the majority of venues. The organising committee commissioned a permanent, and relatively compact Aquatics Centre for the Games and its legacy. However, additional pool space was required to host the swimming competitions and water polo finals. The Paris La Défense Arena was identified as fitting the brief to accommodate two temporary Olympic-sized pools one for warming up and the other for competitions, plus up to 15,000 spectators. To create the temporary arena, WOO’s innovative design and construction involved modular structures and overlays. Flexibility was key to enable the adaptations required between competitions for swimming, water polo (overnight) and para-swimming. The first big move in the transformation was to divide the space at the halfway line of the rugby pitch using the base of the temporary media tribune. A temporary floor was built 2.5 metres above the pitch, with the warm up pool sunk into the space behind the tribune, and the competition pool with public seating located in front. The completed 22-metre-high media tribune accommodated a range of facilities including 520 media desks, 38 wheelchair positions, and rooms for judges and timekeepers. It formed the fourth wall of the temporary arena with a seating capacity of 15,000. The decking overlay was designed around the athletes’ and para-athletes’ journeys from changing rooms to warm-up area, then call room and field-of-play. Following their race, they travelled to mixed zones for interviews with TV and press, then finished at the doping control station. For para-swimming, the journey from warm-up to competition and back was designed on one level. In the brief time between 4 to 5 August, adjustments were made to change the swimming race configuration to a water polo configuration. And following this came the transition to para-swimming. Because the athletes' spaces were designed with para-swimming in mind, no changes were required in the athletes' areas. Modular, demountable and sustainable All the overlay was constructed from standard event industry kit: scaffolding platforms, cabins and temporary seating stands, with a minimum addition of carpentry. Following the Games, the temporary structures were demounted for future use. The legacy The pools are set to become permanent community facilities, with one being installed in Sevran and half a pool in Bagnolet, in Seine-Saint-Denis. This re-use is part of a circular economy approach, but also part of the sporting legacy, so that local residents can benefit from new facilities.