Leyton Orient F.C Stadium

The Football Club has an old stand that dates back to the 1930’s and that previously belonged to a stadium in South London. The support to the seating areas consists of timber boarding forming the flooring and riser elements. During one particular match a piece of floor boarding fell down beneath the stand. Nobody was injured but it highlighted a key safety concern with the stand. We inspected the stand and could see that the structure relied on the interaction of the timber elements with each other and also with the steel frame in order to retain its overall integrity. The connections were evidently loose or ineffective. This meant that when people sat down on mass a horizontal thrust was applied to the timber elements locally and this was causing significant movement of these elements. This affected 2000 seats.

A scheme was devised to install a bracket to prevent the seats from applying a thrust when people sat down on mass and to tie the timber elements together with simple steel angles. The simplicity of the proposed solution meant that the stand was only closed for a short period.

Project Architect: Design Engineering