Swide Magazine by Dolce&Gabbana

The New Year is upon us and we’re looking forward to the year ahead. There are a few huge events that will define the year for many of us and for people all over the world that event will be the Summer Olympic Games in London from 27 July to 12 August 2012.

Already the skyline of London is changing as the Olympic Park and venues for the events take shape. The building of the Park prompted the redevelopment of vast swathes of the city and it looks like the event will be a huge success. But equally important is the legacy of the games and how these venues, built with public money, will be integrated into the infrastructure of the city and provide real benefit for the residents of London City. We had a look at some of the most significant venues currently under construction and saw how they are designed for purpose but also how they are designed with the future in mind.

 

 

The Olympic Stadium

The arena for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London is a hugely ambitious project. This stadium is different to all other Olympic venues as it is designed with sustainability, as it’s main feature. Whereas China used the occasion of the 2008 Olympics to announce it’s arrival on the world stage with the extraordinary ‘Bird’s Nest’ Beijing National Stadium. London has opted for a more understated yet more appropriate design solution as the Games’ centrepiece.

Impressive as the Beijing stadium is, it has left something of a wasteful legacy for future generations. At a cost of $423 million the Beijing National Stadium lacks a permanent resident, the Beijing Guo’an football club were originally supposed to take up a long-term lease but backed out of the agreement citing embarrassment of having only 10,000 supporters attending games in a venue with an 80,000 plus capacity.

So for London the brief was for usability and sustainability. ‘Reduce, reuse and recycle’ is the mantra for the construction of this site. The building materials themselves are environmentally sourced and with steel in such short supply the structure is designed to be 75% lighter in terms of steel use compared to other stadiums, the concrete used contains less captivated carbon than other types of concrete used in stadium building.

The legacy of the Olympic Games is always an important part of the bidding process. The Olympic council wishes to preserve Olympic stadiums as muti-use facilities to promote future interest in athletics and track and field sports. It’s a way of ensuring the relevance of the Olympics for future generations. There are usually guarantees of this sewn into the awarding of the Games and it is no different with London. It’s a noble idea, but an economic hamstring to future profitability for a venue like this and some think it counter-productive as let’s not forget, it is built with public money.

 

With sport, all the money is in football and if you want to tap into that market you have to make the stadium appeal to football interests. When finished, the London Olympic Stadium will have a capacity of 80,000, the third biggest in London. But in a city already replete with stadiums this one will downsize after the games to a capacity of 60,000 in order to ensure its future usability.

A number of London football clubs expressed interest in taking up residency and it was settled that the lease would go to London club West Ham, however a intervention in the courts n behalf of Tottenham Hotspur put paid to that idea, he future use of the stadium is still up n the air.

But if Beijing National Stadium became a symbol of the China’s emergence as an economic superpower, the London Olympic Stadium can also symbolise what is happening in Europe. The recognised and genuine intention to build a future-friendly, sustainably-built and useable facility has become somewhat mired by beaurocracy and political infighting, mirroring, essentially what is occurring in the corridors of Europe’s powers.

Despite this, the vision for the 2012 London Olympic Stadium is commendable indeed and it promises to e a truly extraordinary venue. Maybe it won’t have the flashiness of previous Olympic stadiums, but when design works on a level, tat not only fulfils its functional purpose but also looks to sculpt society and contribute to a better world it is truly beautiful.

Perhaps the real legacy of the stadium will not be whether it maintains profitability or, how it promotes Olympic sports in the future, but in changing how we see the world and how we can place environmentalism at the centre of our lives. The Olympic motto is ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’, perhaps after London 2012 we can add another aspiration to that  – SMARTER.

 

 

Aquatics Centre

The London Aquatics Centre also is designed to ‘downsize’ after the event in order to ensure future usability. Its current capacity is 17,500 but this will be reduced to 2,500 when the temporary seating is removed. It is intended that the Aquatics Centre will be used by local clubs and schools, while the capacity can be increased again to facilitate future major sporting events.

 

At the gate of the Olympic park, the Aquatics Centre is the first structure visible upon entering the Olympic zone and it is designed with a distinctive curved roof and contains a 50m pool, a 25m diving pool and a 50m training pool. 

 

 

Athlete’s Village

Over 17,000 visiting athletes and officials from 205 countries al lover the world will need somewhere to eat, sleep and train. The Athlete’s Village will provide accommodation, shops, restaurants, medical, media and leisure facilities at the centre of the Olympic Park.

 

London is probably the most cosmopolitan and integrated city in the world and this Babel like Olympic Village will be a testament to the vibrant multicultural nature of the English capital. It will include a dinning hall for up to 5,500 hungry athletes and even a disco for any competitors looking for a distraction from their training regime. After the games and the Paralympic Games the Park will become part of a much-needed Stratford redevelopment scheme and provide up to 3,300 new homes.

 

 

Basketball Arena

The Basketball Arena is the biggest temporary structure ever built for ay games and will have seating for 12,000 spectators.  The Arena will host the Basketball finals after which there will be only 22 hours to transform the court for the Handball finals.

 

Basketball is not a leading sport in the UK, so they have avoided the possibility of having a ‘white elephant’ basketball arena by making the entire structure temporary. After the games it will be dismantled with the possibility of reassembly somewhere else in the UK, but a destination is yet to be decided.

 

Eton Manor

Based on the old Eton Manor Sports Club ground the new training facility will house temporary training pools for the Aquatics with three 50 metre pools for swimmers and smaller pools for synchronised swimmers and water polo players. After the Games the area will be transformed into a sports facility for community and regional community use including tennis courts, hockey field and football pitches.

Handball Arena

With an external cladding made from over 3,000 m2 of recycled copper, the Handball Arena will develop a rich textural colour over time. Visitors wall enter the building to a concourse level that is glazed and will enable them to view the event as it happens and it will illuminate the interior when lit at night.

Post Olympics the venue will be adapted to form a multi-use indoor spots arena. The seating is retractable ad can be adapted to various sizes for events that will range from community scale events to national and international in size.

Hockey Centre

The ‘gentleman’s game’ of hockey will get its own temporary facility with two different sized fields to ensure a good atmosphere also at the smaller hockey events. The field itself is coloured blue (instead of the traditional green) to provide a high contrast against the yellow ball that will be used during the game.

After the Games the Hockey Centre will be dismantled and assimilated permanently into the Eton Manor sports complex, where it will have seating for 3,000 spectators and the ability to increase seating to 15,000 for bigger events.

Velodrome

The British love fair with the sport of cycling continues with the construction of the Velodrome. T is the most sustainable structure in the whole Olympic Park as sustainable choices made whenever possible. From the sourcing of certified sustainable wood for the track to the external cladding along with a 100% naturally ventilated internal climate system that eliminates the need for air conditioning yet keeps the internal temperature at he perfect track level. The beautiful curved roof structure creates a brilliant atmosphere while reducing the space that requires heating and saves energy.

London is in the middle of a huge push to make the city the cycling capital of the world with new initiatives to ban the car from the city centre and encourage Londoners to get pedalling. After the Games the Velodrome will be integral to this plan. A new mountain bike course and road cycling circuit will be added together with cafés, workshops and bike hire facilities.

These are just some of the facilities that are beginning to take shape inside and outside of London. When bidding for the Games London had promised to make these the biggest and best games ever. Everything seems to be going to plan, on time and within budget, OK this is London so we can’t guarantee that the weather is going to be fine, but we can guarantee that when the curtain raises on the biggest sporting event in history, that the stage will be set. We can’t wait, it’s only January and already the pulse is racing.

by Hugo Mc Cafferty 

TAGS: dolce&gabbana d&g xmas2011 New Year London Olympics 2012 venues stadium Arena Handball Arena Basketball Arena Eton Manor Hockey Centre Velodrome