Some hush for the Olympics

A Traditional Housing Bureau product story

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Oct 3, 2005

Olympic village needs to be better than the 'holiday chalet' environment of some build methods and brick and blockwork will give a top-class performance.

Jim Holland, newly-appointed Director of the Modern Masonry Alliance (MMA) voiced the masonry industry's confidence that home-grown materials and build methods would turn-in a 'Gold' performance at the 2012 Olympics: "For the London Olympics in 2012, we can expect a very busy environment with round-the-clock activity.

Couple that with a hopefully warm summer welcome from our climate and you can see that the Olympic village needs to provide more performance than the 'holiday chalet' environment of some build methods.

Brick and blockwork will give a top-class performance, as befits the world's best athletes.

A good night's sleep is a prerequisite, and solid masonry walls and floors have performance to spare when it comes to sound insulation.

This means peace and quiet between rooms as well as stopping hubbub from outside.

A constant internal environment without resorting to energy-hungry airconditioning is masonry's stock-in-trade, whilst excellent levels of thermal insulation are achieved to stop heat loss, the mass of masonry also absorbs excess heat in summer daytime and releases it to offset cool nights.".