Iffley Road Leisure Centre

Iffley Road Leisure Centre is the first phase of an ambitious Oxford University plan to develop the area into a large multi-sports complex.

This new centre is situated next to the Sir Roger Bannister Running Track, the location of Roger Bannister’s historic 4 minute mile. The project incorporates a range of notable facilities, such as a  four-court sports hall and multi-purpose activity room.

The Challenge

The Iffley Road Leisure facility was designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects. To maintain the world-class image, the project was developed to a very high specification. The project presented a number of initial design challenges for our pre-construction team. For example, the balustrades to some of the internal areas had to accommodate changing surface levels and ramps.

The Solution

BA Systems were contracted by Beard Construction to provide glass balustrades and stainless steel handrails to various stairs and ramps across the centre.

Following a design and Value Engineering exercise, the BA Systems design team proposed a change from vertical steel bar balustrades and ‘elephant’ grill balustrades (Fig. 1), to the B20 stainless steel post and glass alternative (Fig. 2). This cost-effective solution provided an aesthetic upgrade to the external ramps and stairs.

For the internal balustrades, the B40 Structural Glass product was proposed. This was installed on the feature stair and on various voids and ramps across the 2-story building. On the internal ramps, to accommodate the changing finished floor level, the design team developed a bespoke steel bracket to support the ICE1 balustrade base channel (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). At 2nd fix stage, the balustrade base channel was then clad in a polyester powder coated aluminium trim to provide a consistent finish to the base fixing interface.

Fig 1 – Vertical bar steel balustrades

Fig. 2 – B20 post and glass balustrade alternative

Fig. 3 – B40 balustrade with bespoke steel fixing bracket

Fig. 4 – B40 balustrade with bespoke steel fixing bracket