"One would wonder why the staff at a software company would celebrate South Africa winning the bid to host the 2010 soccer world cup," says Tex van Deventer, managing director of Bentley Systems South Africa. "But with Bentley's solid track record in stadium design and facilities management, we hope to be more than just spectators to this wonderful event. Bentley tools ideal for design and management of sport complexes and we are sure that we and those many design firms who use Bentley technology, would be an integral part of the planning, design and construction that lies ahead."

Stadium design

Bentley engineering tools were used in the design of the WestPac Trust Stadium in New Zealand. Although many a Springbok has met his match on these grounds, it still remains a marvel amongst modern stadia.

WestPac stadium opened January 2000 and provides the capital city of New Zealand with a modern world-class stadium, the first of its kind in the country. In its first year of operation WestPacTrust Stadium sold all memberships in the first six months, sold 18 000 rugby season tickets compared to 1800 at the previous venue, achieved record crowds for a multitude of events and produced a $1-million profit for the Hurricanes Rugby Union franchise in the first year of operation - the largest profit in the Super 12 franchises.

This project provided a unique opportunity to develop a world class venue as a whole entity - rather than adding to an existing facility in a piecemeal fashion. The bowl took an unusual oval form as a rational response to the need to provide a five-block cricket wicket of international standing. The bowl design includes a complete oval lower tier with separate box level seating 2600 to the underside of the roof giving dramatic and unobstructed views of the whole arena. The complete enclosure of the field with the oval seating bowl provides an ideal amphitheatre for the action of the sporting arena.

Concourse areas include gallery spaces providing seven-day-a-week entertainment, cultural and exhibition space serving the community. The stadium also includes offices, a sports medicine facility, cricket academy and a cricket museum.

Located in the former rail yards adjacent to the CBD, the stadium takes a leading role in the redevelopment of the surrounding area. It is effectively landlocked on three sides with all vehicular and pedestrian access gained via the plaza linking the venue with the main railway station to the south. The railway passes directly under the public plaza providing an ideal public transport link to the facility.

Managing athlete villages

The 2002 Winter Olympics were hosted in Salt Lake City, USA. The Salt Lake Organising Committee had the task of managing thousands of asset items in over 80 physical locations for both the Olympic and Paralympic Winter games. With the help of Bentley's ActiveAsset Planner, supplied and implemented by Quantum Leap, and a custom-built work order system, the size of the logistical challenge was significantly reduced and made more manageable.

Trying to convert a University campus into a modern Athletes Village was no easy feat. Each of the 80 competing countries had different requests, from bed length for the taller athletes, to additional technology requests for their administrators. Coupling this with the fluctuating overall delegation numbers, ensuring that the University furniture was placed back in its original position after the games and capturing and assigning damages to the correct countries presented an enormous logistical challenge.

Time was also a major factor. The 200 buildings of the University had to be converted from a functional University to a fully functional Olympic Village. Once the Winter Olympic Games were over, the spaces had to be reset, modified, cleaned, and all damages fixed within a 60-hour window before the Village reopened again as the Paralympic Village. Then it all had to be restored to its original functionality as a University in time for the next semester.

SLOC chose Quantum Leap to implement the Bentley ActiveAsset Planner Space Planning and Asset Tracking system because of their experience in implementing the system at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. "We could not have done it without this software," states Marc Klein, program manager, support operations village operations, for the Sydney games.

Quantum Leap was asked back to Salt Lake to extend the system with their locally developed integrated work order system (words). "Having the ability to link the asset management and work order systems together provided SLOC with an invaluable knowledge management tool," says Andrew Auld, event facilities management specialist from Quantum Leap." It allowed them to manage the dynamic changes in the life cycle of the two Villages in the very short time frame available".

For more information contact Bentley Systems, 011 462 5811, www.bentley.com