Damon LAVELLE

Sochi 2014 Olympic & Paralympic Games

RIBA Regional Award Winner, 2015
Shortlisted, World Architecture Festival, 2015
Nomination RIBA Stirling Prize 2012
2010 Overall Award, Leaf Awards

Damon was born in Melbourne, Australia and studied at the University of Melbourne, and the University of Manchester, England.
He has a broad range of site, technical and managerial experience, having been Project Architect and Design Team Leader for projects as diverse as multi-storey offices, theatres, stadia, arenas, shopping centres and casino/hotel entertainment projects.

Damon was Project Designer for the two Populous designed stadia projects constructed for the Euro 2004 in Portugal – The 65,000 capacity Benfica Stadium in Lisbon , the main venue for Euro 2004 and the 30,000 seat Algarve Stadium in Faro.
He was also involved in the initial design of the O2 Arena London and is project designer of the innovative O2 arena Dublin and the new arena in Leeds England. He has also designed new Arenas for Cork, Battersea, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Antalya and Kiev.

Over the years he has collaborated extensively with Peter Eisenman’s New York office, and Frank Gehry’s Los Angeles office on innovative solutions for numerous European sport and leisure schemes.
The main venue for the FIFA world cup 2010, Soccer City Johannesburg, has been designed by Damon for Populous in collaboration with local partners. He also collaborated for Populous on the Mbombela Stadium project Nelspruit for the same event.

Damon leads the populous efforts in Russia and Eastern Europe:- he is responsible for the Kazan Stadium and the Sochi Central Olympic Stadium.
Both are venues for the FIFA world Cup 2018, and are respectively also the main venues for the 2013 University games and the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.