Covered athletics track for top athletes

The new elite sports hall in Louvain-la-Neuve, which serves not only as training infrastructure but also as a venue for courses and indoor competitions, is 80 m wide and 130 m long and has a floor area of approximately 10,000 m², spanned without internal support columns. The 540 tonne S355 steel supporting structure is made up of 80 m long and 14.6 m high transverse gantries and the outsides of the columns are v-shaped, reducing the number of support points and giving the structure a more ‘architectural’ silhouette. Three-dimensional trusses with a span of 80 m are incorporated in the roof. The roof structure comprises perforated sheet steel, rock wool insulation and a multi-layer waterproofing system. The facade dynamics envisaged by the architects were achieved by means of a secondary structure attached to the main structure that supports a perforated steel sheet on the inside, which in turn bears the acoustic rock wool insulation.