IAKS UK Conference in Portsmouth on 15 June 2023

Seminar and visit of the Ravelin sports facility

Shaun Dawson leads the award winning Lee Valley Regional Park Authority which is responsible for the 4,000 ha Lee Valley Regional Park. The Regional Park consists of a range sport and leisure venues along with country parks and nature reserves and attracts 7 mill visitors a year.

Shaun has been involved in the London 2012 Olympic project from bid stage in 2003 to now leading the organisation which has guaranteed the future of three world class London 2012 legacy venues: Lee Valley White Water Centre; Lee Valley VeloPark; Lee Valley Hockey & Tennis Centre. These venues are popular community assets and financially successful, hosting a range of community and commercial activities including over 20 major international events since 2012.

Shaun was a member of the UK Government’s Rio 2016 Advisory Panel and has spent time in Rio advising the City, State and Federal Governments on sporting legacy. He has also provided advice to Tokyo 2020 on venue design and legacy planning and has spent time in Tokyo where he met with representatives from Government and the Tokyo 2020 agencies.

He has extensive experience of strategic planning, business modelling, development and management of sports venues. A particular focus has been delivering viable and sustainable venues that are community focused and commercially driven.

Mike Hall specialises in the design of sports facilities. He is an advocate of developing expertise as a springboard for innovative solutions in this specialist field, where the social spaces are as valuable as the fields of play. Notable examples include the multi award-winning Derby Arena, Lee Valley White Water Centre for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the University of Surrey Sports Complex.

Mike has travelled widely, researching and benchmarking facilities around the world and brings a national and international perspective to this field. He is an active member of the International Union of Architects (UIA) sports and leisure working group.

Paul is responsible for the strategic direction of the department and the delivery of all University sport and physical activity programmes, partnerships and facility provision. Paul has worked at Portsmouth since 2008 – initially as Assistant Head of Sport, before becoming Head of Sport in 2010.

His previous experience includes work in the Sports Development teams at the University of Leeds and Havant Borough Council. An alumnus of the University of Portsmouth, Paul completed both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies here.

Daniel is an architect and partner at Cullinan Studio who is motivated by creating environments which excite people and allow them to thrive alongside nature and natural materials. He has embraced this challenge through cultural, community and healthcare projects and is currently pioneering a methodology for calculating embodied carbon and implementing circular economy principles on all Cullinan Studio projects.

Nic is a registered architect with over 30 years of experience in developing, designing and delivering sport, leisure, retail and urban regeneration projects, from local community to elite sports facilities.

Nic is the architect that led Integrated Design Team delivering St. Sidwell’s Point, the world’s first Multi-Zonal Passivhaus Leisure Centre and is presently providing guidance to our Glasgow Team delivering the next generation Passivhaus sports centre in Enniskillen.

In addition to bringing his extensive experience to our own projects through peer review, plus providing design and technical support to his colleagues at S&P, his expertise is available to everyone through his work assisting our team in writing and updating the Sport England Design Guidance Notes.

BArch (Dist), BSc (Hons) Arch, UWCC, RIBA

Tom is a Senior Principal in the London office of Populous and has a keen interest in how sports and entertainment buildings and events can enhance cities and communities. He has a great passion for sport and has been able to use this in the design and delivery of a number of high-profile projects around the world, including the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Emirates Stadium for Arsenal FC and the Olympic Stadium for the London 2012 Olympic Games.  He has also worked on other major sports events, including the ICC Cricket World Cup and NFL Super Bowl.

In addition to running major projects, Tom has co-authored the technical guide to Sports Facilities in the Metric Handbook and contributed to a series of international publications. He is a member of the IAKS Executive Board since 2017 and sits on the Sports Economy Sector Advisory Group for DIT (Department of Industry and Trade).  He has also spoken at a range of conferences and events around the world on the sustainability of sports and entertainment buildings.

MA MArch PGDip

Irina is a key member of the internationally recognised FaulknerBrowns’ sports and leisure team. Coming from Russia she has brought a global perspective on the design of sports facilities which challenges traditional models and drives innovation in the sector.  Having been involved in the design of a number of high profile sports projects, she is currently leading the design and delivery of a major sports facility for the University of Portsmouth that raises the national and international benchmark for sustainability and is on target to be the first BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ building of its kind.

In 2017, Irina was named the winner of the prestigious AJ/Curtins Inspiring Graduate Prize and she has received the National G4C Future Leader Award in 2018. She also represents the interests of young construction professionals in the North East as a co-chair of the regional Generation 4 Change Committee.

Mark is a Director of Engineering and the Sports Sector Leader at Max Fordham. For nearly 30 years he has been designing high-performance, sustainable sports buildings for universities, local authorities, and major events. His experience ranges from a series of Sport England "optimum" sports halls, to the Olympic Water Polo Arena for London 2012, to the multi award-winning Oriam (Scotland's National Performance Centre).

Mark has recently completed the Ravelin Sports Centre at the University of Portsmouth, one of the UK's most sustainable sports centres with a BREEAM 'Outstanding' rating. Mark is also a member of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard group for Sport & Leisure.

Stephen is passionate about improving our impact on the natural world and loves to find ways to decarbonise energy intense buildings and processes.  He is a building services engineer specialising in swimming pool design and in science laboratory and engineering facilities.

He also provides technical support and peer review for high profile swimming and leisure facilities in the UK and globally, and recently led the multi-disciplinary engineering design for the UK's first Passivhaus Leisure Centre, St Sidwell's Point.

Stephen has 20 years of experience in project management, design and supervision of engineering services in a wide variety of new build and refurbishment projects, and offers freelance consultancy through a new business venture, Teal Consultancy Ltd.

Simon has authored official policy on Embodied and Whole Life Carbon for the RICS, the RIBA and for the Greater London Authority’s London Plan.

He is leading industry wide task groups to produce ‘Carbon and Net Zero Definitions’ for the built environment industry, and to update the RICS Professional Statement on ‘Whole Life Carbon assessment for the built environment -2017’, due late 2023.

Simon is an advisor on low carbon construction to: DLUHC, Cabinet Office, EU Standards, Historic England, the World Wildlife Fund, Schroders Real Estate, British Land, Landsec, Grosvenor, Legal & General, Quintain, Warwick University, Gatwick Airport, the UKGBC, and the BCO. He is a Special Advisor to the Environmental Audit Select Committee.