On Thursday 6 March a group of Construction Project Management, Quantity Surveying and Civil Engineering students visited Glasgow's Hampden Park which will play host to the track and field athletics competitions and the closing ceremony of the Glasgow 2014 XX Commonwealth Games. Hampden Park - the home venue of the Scottish National football team - is currently being transformed from a football venue into an athletics stadium; in particular the playing surface has been raised by almost two metres.
I am delighted that I had the opportunity to be taught from members of the organising committee about the development of the venues for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, as well as to visit Hampden Park. It enabled me to see what really happens in the backstage of delivering sporting events like the Commonwealth Games
On arrival, the students were welcomed at the relocated Commonwealth House in East Glasgow, where staff from Glasgow 2014 Ltd., the Organising Committee for the Games, gave a presentation of the capital works as well as the temporary facility works undertaken for the Commonwealth Games. The presentation was followed by a unique tour of Hampden Park stadium.
Quantity Surveying student, Klitos Demitriou said: "I am delighted that I had the opportunity to be taught from members of the organising committee about the development of the venues for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, as well as to visit Hampden Park. It enabled me to see what really happens in the backstage of delivering sporting events like the Commonwealth Games.''
Civil Engineering student Joseph De-Groot added: "The visit highlighted how much each discipline may need to know about others in order to successfully deliver complex projects like this one."
The site visit was made possible with the help of Ashley Constance (Venue Development and Overlay Programme Manager), a former Heriot-Watt student and an industrial mentor on the Culture of External MENToring (CEMENT) scheme.