ARCT 1066 GREEN ENGINEERING OF FUTURE CITIESThe Olympics Legacy: From Inception to Completion and beyond

Blog: https://pl305.wordpress.com

LUCY PRATT

LONDON AS AN OLYMPIC HOST

London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics on 6th of July 2005, after competing agaisnt New York, Madrid, Paris and Moscow. Meaning Britain would be the only country to ever host the Olympic games three times. Ken Livingstone promised to ‘deliver a compact and sustainable Olympic park, which will transform one of London’s most neglected areas and re-connect it to the rest of London and to Europe. This will kick start regeneration in East London, while bringing all parts of the city together to celebrate the unifying force of Olympism” (The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, p14) When deciding which country should host the olympic games the criteria included: • Government support and public opinion • City infrastructure (such as transport) • Sports venues and experience • Olympic village and • Accommodation • Environmental impact and legacy • Safety and security • Finance

f.g 4

f.g 5

The image above shows the timeline which shows the process of initial applicant reviews all the way through to the olympic games being held, in total it takes 9 years from initial applications to the Olympic Games

OLYMPIC LEGACY AND REGENERATION

The chosen site for the London 2012 is Lower Lee valley, Statford in East London, an area known for its poverty and waste-lands. This are of London was used for industry, tanneries, and chemical works leaving behind a contami nated waste land. The idea of the London 2012 games was to make this area of London more socially and economically sus- tainable, providing both private and afforable housing, as well as improving the ed-ucation and of local people. Figures 8 and 9 (right) show the Olympic park site before and after regener-ation. Philip Askew said “legacy is about saying how can we make the people that live here lives better. Not about building something alien and excluding people (like Canary Wharf) giving people opportu-nities they didn’t have before. Without Olympics it would have still been the way it was before.”

INTRODUCTION

f.g 6f.g 7

f.g 8

f.g 9

f.g 10

The image above shows a timeline of the proposed plans of the Legacy after the 2012 games and how the stadiums will stay in use. In previous Olympic games in other coutries, stadiums and olympic parks have been unused and eventually end up as run down relics.Some

THE PROS AND CONS OF REGENERATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

As the Olympic park would be such a large area of regeneration it means there will always be pros and cons to regeneration some of these include:

Pros: • It will help to regenerate a poorer area of East London and help bring people to the area

• It will help enhance the historical importance of Britain, as it has now hosted three olympic games. Also increase the UKs reputation as a sporting country • It will bring money to London in terms of tourism and spectators • It attempts to inspire a generation

Cons: • The cost of the games is extremely high and people worry it will escalate • Public transport ‘chaos’, with the large amout of spectators (an estimated 3 million) at the games there will be increased pressure on transport links, most importantly the underground. Which may effect everyday life for Loners during the games. • Natural beauty will be lost in the regenera tion process • Lack of real regeneration: wether the proposed plans will have the impact they promise to on local communties.

Effects on local communites:

It is hoped that the games will bring positive effects to the local communities, mostly in the way of regeneration and making areas more pleasent to live in. A resident living in Newham stated: “I’m just so looking forward to 2012, making Newham a better area, and obviously the surrounding areas, like Hackney and Green-wich. Already you can see the impact, and I just really want it to be a better place to live.”

INTRODUCTION

f.g 11

f.g 12a

f.g 12

INTRODUCTIONSITE LOCATION IN RELATION TO THE REST OF LONDON

The olympic park is Located in East London and cover parts of Stratford, Bow, Leyton, and Hackney Wick. The focal point of the site is the River Lee.

f.g 13

f.g 14

f.g 15

SITE ORIENTATION

The site is between the four different bouroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets to the West and Waltham Forest and Newham to the East as shown in f.g 25 (below). f.g 26 shows the park inrealtion to the major roads in and around london.

f.g 25

f.g 26

INTRODUCTION

URBAN STRATEGY

“The Games have reversed that. When it re-opens,the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be a major new urban district, with generous new parklands and world-class sports venues, and up to 10,000 new homes and as many new jobs housed within the Park itself and many more thousands of each in the area around.” (http://queenelizabetholym-picpark.co.uk)

To help the urban strategy major new transport links are planned. f.g 16 shows how the public network is going to be expanded, with new local links to stich communities. f.g. 17 shows the idea to create new parks and transformation of greenspaces which will have a key role in structuring the urban change to deliver sustainable and remarkable spaces

INTRODUCTION

Figure 18 shows a potential plan of where town centre, buisinesses, community sites and industrial areas will be placed, focusing on activities which support a sustainable London. New urban neighbourhoods are being established on surplus industrial land.

f.g 16 f.g 17

f.g 18

INTRODUCTIONThree master plans, the first showing the master map for the olympic park during the games,the second for the transformation, and the thrid for the legacy after the games. (The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, p.108,109)

THE INFRASTRUCTURE TO ENABLE THE PROJECT

The site for the olympic park is roughly twice the size of Heathrow terminal 5, meaning this would be one of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects ever. It would need to provide a whole new infra-structure of internet, sewage, telephone cables, links to power plants &energy cables. A design for a new energy plant was made to keep mak-ing energy for the next 40 years.

The whole park was criss crossed by pilons and high voltage cables which had to be removed, and 5km of newtunnel had to be made. They went over 30 different models to work out how it will work, as tunnels mean you can only load up so much material on top. (notes taken from Phil Askew lecture)

More than 30 new bridges and 20km of roads were constructed and 8km of waterways re-furbished and revitalised. The charts (right) show the summery of the ODA’s scape and programme of works, and the other the overall budget consolidating projects. (The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, p71,73)

INTRODUCTION

f.g 19

f.g 20 f.g 21

INTRODUCTIONSITE CONDITIONS

This area of East London was heavily contaminded due to years of industrial activity including: soap factories, gas works, the Hudson Bay fur deposit, and a number of other heavy industrial operations. (foresty.gov.uk)

They didn’t want to dump the contaminated earth,so they aimed to retain 90 percent of the material. To clean: they had soil hos-pitals, dipped into hoppers and people picked out items and then extracted organic matter with the chemicals within it and threw it away. Also pipes pumping oxygen through the soil to make organisms thrive and eat bad chemicals . (Phil Askew lec-ture notes)

To make the clean up as sustainable as possible the materiala are then used, they are clean but not clean enough for people to be in contact with. It is used 800 ml down underneath an orange layer to show a clear barrier. (Phil Askew lecture notes)

There were some critasisms towards the de-contamination pro-cess for example:

• It cost the tax payer £12.7m • People felt radioactive areas were missed or overlooked. (the guardian.com)

Figures 22 and 23 show the site before the regeneration pro-cess, and how run down the area was before it was cleared and developed. Figure 24 shows the orange layer they used to show the speration of contaminated soil.

f.g 22

f.g 23

f.g 24

PLANNING CONSTRANTS

Some of the key issues that effected the planning and construction of the Olympic park are:

•Relocating existing occupiers - including the users of Hackney Marshes, and the very effe ctive and articulate Eastway Users Group • Transport impacts - the Olympic site was already well-served by existing and proposed transport infrastructure. • Archaeology and heritage • Flooding - there were some important issues associated with the Flood Risk Assessment and the mitigation of those risks. • Habitats - whilst the area was mainly heavily industrialised or derelict, there were protect ed sites owned by the London Wildlife trust. •There were 300 landowners who were opposed to the compulsory purchase orders that would be needed if the bid was success ful. These points taken from (http://www.paulwinterand-co.com) They had to plan rigorously, and had an independent set of planners to make the planning process as fast and efficient as possible. This bought in people from different boroughs, as the land was all owned by dif-ferent people. (Phil Askew lecture notes)

f.g 27

INTRODUCTION

My site photographs

THE OLYMPIC PARK

My site photographs

THE OLYMPIC PARK

My site photographs

THE OLYMPIC PARK

THE OLYMPIC PARKMy route through the Olympic park

DESIGN CONCEPT AND STRATEGY

The Olympic park had an ‘Inclusive design strategy’ meaning that the places can be designed and built to be enjoyed by everyone regardless of disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, race or faith. The Inclusive Design Strategy is used to inform the Legacy Corpo-ration’s work through the first phase ofdesign, plan-ning and development. (http://queenelizabetholym-picpark.co.uk)

The vision for the Olympic park is for it to act as a cat-alyst for regeneration of this area of East London.

From my experiences walking through the park I believe the park has been very successful in trans-forming this area of East London for the better, there were lots of people around so evidence of it drawing people to the area. Also it is an aeshetically pleasing place now unlike before. The landscaping has drasti-cally changed and altered the land around the River Lea for the better, with new pathways and sculptures, unlike the overgrown bushes that resided there be-fore development.

THE OLYMPIC PARK

my photographs

f.g 39

f.g 40

THE OLYMPIC PARKMaps showing the Olympic park layout in terms of the differnet buildings and landscape

The architectural practice that undertook the design of the Olympic Stadium is Populous, an architecture firm that specialises in sporting venues, entertainment buildings and music venues, and whose motto is ‘drawing people together’ The architects main ethos states:

“Each project we undertake has a set of unique challenges it faces. Through listening, observing and collaborating closely with our clients we discover opportunities to amplify the char-acter of a place or community. Our team’s international per-spective brings together ideas from across cultures, activities, building types, events, and landscapes to realize a vision that connects fans with each other through their shared passions.” (http://populous.com/about/)

Some of their previous projects include:

Wembley Stadium, 2007 Aviva Stadium, 2010

Pheonix convention centre expansion, 2008 Philippine Arena,2014

f.g 28 f.g 29

f.g 30 f.g 31

f.g 32

The team that worked on the Olympic stadium in-clude:

Lead contractor - Sir Robert McAlpineStructural and service engineer - Buro HappoldLandscape architect - Hyland Edgar Driverteam:

• Belinda Goh • Nicholas Reynolds • Rod Sheard • Philip Johnson • Sang Hoon Kim • Mark Craine • Tom Jones • Megan Ashfield • Dale Jennins • Andrew James • Paul Henry

•Main Client: Olympic Delivery Authority •Main Contractor: Sir Robert McAlphine •Structural Engineer: Buro Happold•Steelwork Contractor: Watson Steel Structures

Some of the awards they won and nominations they recieved for the London Olympic stadium include:

• Nomination RIBA Stirling Prize 2012 • National RIBA Award 2012 • Nominated Structural Engineer Award 2012 • Building Control Award (Regional) • Structural Steel Award 2012 • AIA Kansas City Design Excellence Awards, Honor Award, 2012

(all http://populous.com)

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

Previous Olympic stadiums

Images taken from Philip Johnson lecture

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

INITIAL PLANNING AND MASTERPLANS

Populous used abercrombie mapping, and social and functional analysis with the idea to extend existing communities. Their thought processes always linking back to legacy. The image below shows their intial thought processes and what they took into con-sideration when designing a masterplan. The other image shows the initial 3D model master plan of the site and design of the studium. (both images taken from Philip Johnson lecture)

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

ORIGINAL MASTER PLANS FOR THE OLYMPIC PARK

Along with the foreign office, they came up with these images of the master plan

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

images taken from Philip Johnson lecture

DESIGN PROCESS

The brief set for the Olympic stadium design included:

• Sporting excellence: -Athlectics track and field • Urban regeneration: -Legacy at the heart • Key challenge for the stadium: -Capacity conversion • Sustainability: -Leightweight and compact • Urban regeneration: -Legacy at the heart • Spectator experience: -Event day, , must seat 80,000 spectators

To get inspiration for the design of the stadium they looked back at previous Olympic Stadiums for exam-ple Atlanta – the first Olympic stadium that looked into how it can be adapted after the games. They also asked people what they wanted to gain from the stadium. For example talked to athletes in world championships to find out what is important to them, e.g spectators being as close as possible. (notes from Philip Johnsons lecture) The initial design was to feature having a lower tier for 25,000, everything above the podium would be tempo-rary, problem being cant hire in 25,000 seats

One of the originl design processes was to have one roof with temporary structure, the images to the right show some of the initial designs and models created to show how the stadium could look.

f.g 33

f.g 34

f.g 35

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

FINAL DECIDED STADIUM DESIGN

The final design will feauture:• making the upper temporary tiers as simple as possible, used layers to create the building• Cross sections : Lower tier sunk into the ground, steel construc tion and bicycle wheel type roof, lights must be really high up on towers for tv etc

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

images taken from Philip Johnson lecture

THE OLYMPIC STADIUMEVOLUTION OF THE STADIUM EXTERIOR

Started off with an idea of having twistedribbons of different colours designed by artist Sophie Smallhorn, with spectator ‘pods’ surrounding the stadium. However these were nev-er used due to cost and the fabric being to translucent. The end result (last image) being the final design with a more industrial look

Roof is still same with polycarbonate ring in the middle, canopy around outside, with white entrance pods. A Neutral colour scheme was chosen rather than muticoloured elements, the end appearance is a very gentle building given its scale. (images taken from Philip Johnson lecture)

Spectator pods

Twisted ribbons

CONSTRUCTION

Materials that will be used:

• Roof : steel structure, compression truss, diagonals stop the whole thing rotating with fabric stretched between• Unused steel in Yorkshire was used rather than made specifically • Translucent fabric on the roofing• Concrete at the lower levels

These images show some photographs during the construc-tion process

More than 800,00 tonnes of soil were cleared, cleaned and redistributed to make way for the stadium’s construction platform. The change of level allows facilities for athletes at the lower level to be separated from the public areas above. (notes and images taken from Philip Johnson lecture)

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

The final design meant the lower tiers were sunk into the ground and to keep the upper tiers as simple as pos-sible. The triangular structures above the tiers are the lights that will be used during the games.

Lower tier:

The lower tier was constructed of low carbon conrete with over 4,500 reinforced concrete columns on piles. All the seating is fixed to the pre cast concrete. In terms of other uses at this level, there are 700 rooms builnt into this level for athletes, media, medical services etc.

Upper tier:

The whole seating structure on this level is temporary and is known to have a tendancy to move a lot with the motion of the crowd . There are 55,000 seats in the up-per tier which is supported by an array of 112 steel rak-ers. Beneath the steelwork is functional and made up of I-sections bolted together with all the connections una-shamedly on show.

Roof:

The roof is designed around a bicycle wheel with a rim in compression which connects to a central hub via ten-sion membersand uses more detailed structures. The steelwork connections for the roof and upper tier were bolted together with gusset plates or 50mm flanges where one tube joins another lengthways. (notes and images from Phil Johnson lecture notes)

UPPER AND LOWER TIER CONSTRUCTION

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

A diagram showing an exploded axonometric of the stadium and showing the structure of the lay-ers and tiers

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

image taken from Philip Johnson lecture

STEELWORKS AND MATERIALS

The whole of the roof structure and part of the arean structure were to be made with steel framework, in an attempt to be more sustainable the steel was sourced from Yorkshire where they had a large quantity of unused steel. Using this steel means they did not have to have to get any steel made specifically, which is time and energy consuming.

A lightweight demountable steelwork design consisting of trussed rakers on raking columns was used, which helped reduced the footprint and minimised the impact on the spectator cir-culation areas below the terracing. The roof con-sists of a 900m long ring truss supported on a series of inclined tubular columns.

The image below shows the steel when found in Yorkshire (Philip Johnson lecture) and the im-ages to the right are photographs I took on site shows some of the steel structures

As the lower part of the stadium was to be per-manent and the top part temporary, the lower levels were made from contrete while the top layers steel.

The project programme was extremely tight with only six and a half months from the end of con-cept design to commencing piling so the early procurement of the structural steelwork was critical. Watson Steel Structures supplied 10,600 tons of structural steelwork for the stadium and are also supplying steel for the Basketball and Handball arenas.

About 34% of the steel and concrete in the stadi-um are recycled. It has been built using less than half the steel of comparable stadia, reducing its environmental impact and making it the lightest Olympic stadium constructed to date. (Philip Johnson lecture notes)

Outer ring truss 900m long and 12m deep

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

STADIUM LOCATION

The stadium is situated on the South side of the Olympic park, within a close distance to Stratford station for easy access

f.g 36

f.g 37

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

THE OLYMPIC STADIUMLEGACY AND REGENERATION AFTER THE 2012 GAMES

A very important part of the design was how it would be adaptable after the games, and used for many different events such as concerts, rugby world cup baseball etc. The stadium started to get broken down as soon as the games ended, and populous had to bid for conversion works, deals with westham etc ..... Spurs wanted to flatten it, but 97% of Londoners wanted it to be kept showing it had been a successful stadium. (philip Johnson lec-ture notes)

Post games, they wanted island to be part of the park, so didn’t need tickets so made ring of steel around stadium.The seating bowl would now have retractable seating to acccomodate dif-ferent sports and events – athlectics looked into laser guiding etc but it was too expensive. Sports differed massivly in what the stadium needed to be for example football seats are moved in unlike in athletics. The ights are to be left but under the roof instead (philip Johnson lecture notes)

The images show how the seats can be retracted and changed for differ-ent sporting events, in this case football and athletics. (images from Philip Askew lecture)

STADIUM REGENERATION AND LEGACYThis diagram shows the regeneration process from the games to transformation stadium

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

f.g 38

THE OLYMPIC STADIUMMY EXPERIENCE OF THE OLYMPIC STADIUM DURING MYSITE VISIT

In this photo you can see the olympic stadium in relation to the The Arcelor Mittal Orbit, having the two structures next to each other shows how prominant the steel struc-tures are. The white steel of the stadium stands out against the red and looks very delicate next to the densley packed steel of the orbit.

This view is taken from the other side of the river over the bridge and is the view you get when walking towards the stadium. From here the struccture looks small as the steel structure around the outside dwarfs the seating stalls behind it, creating the illusion of a smaller space. The trees also help to break up the stadiums repatition of steel structures

This photograph shows a more detailed view of the steel con-structions, and shows some of the joining points. The points at where the steel frames meet is a bracket similar to those seen in Buckminster Fullers architecture, shown in the image to the right.

At this level the steel structure looks less lightweight as you can see the joinings and get more of a feel for the weight of the structure. You also notice the contrast between the white steel structure and the black steel behind holding up the up-per tier seating, whereas from a distance this is not noticeable

THE OLYMPIC STADIUM

Ff.g 41

REFERENCESIMAGESF.g 1 http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/9356767-queen-elizabeth-olympic-park-stadium F.g 2 http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/1paralympics/olympic_park_night_1.jpgF.g 3 http://inhabitat.comF.g 4 http://lh3.ggpht.comF.g 5 http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2011/06/dezeen_Olympic-Torch-by-BarberOsgerby-3.jpgF.g 6 http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00349/11171728__349642c.jpgF.g 7 http://www.olympic.org/content/olympic-games/bidding-for-the-games/F.g 8,9 https://gdblogs.shu.ac.uk/b1027817/wp-content/uploads/sites/120/2014/03/londonbefaft.jpg F.g 10 http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/18/article-2175316-141B4A4B000005DC-516_634x462.jpgF.g 11 http://www.geography.org.uk/projects/planetsport/london2012/legacy/F.g 12 http://img.bleacherreport.net/img/slides/photos/002/414/296/hi-res-1578787_crop_north.jpg?w=630&h=420&q=75F.g 13 http://www.presidentsmedals.com/showcase/2012/l/1326_16102002244.jpgF.g 14 John Hopkins and Peter Neal, The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, p17F.g 15 https://www.englishclub.com/images/vocabulary/Olympics/2012-london-olympics-zones-map.pngF.g 16, 17, 18 http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/qeop/files/public/publications/s136682673stitchingthefringeapr2013.pdfF.g 19 http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/lldc/policies/lldc_your_sustainability_guide_to_the_queen_elizabeth_olympic_park2030F.g 20,21 John Hopkins and Peter Neal, The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, p71,73F.g 22 http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120709020243-olympics-rubbish-horizontal-gallery.jpgF.g 23 http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/14/article-2129852-12996A93000005DC-599_634x352.jpgF.g 24 http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/node/1108F.g 25 John Hopkins and Peter Neal, The making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, p32F.g 26 http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/lldc/planning/cil%2015%20lp_2014_final.pdfF.g 27 http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1323826817-olympic-park-proposals-08.jpgF.g 28 - 32 http://populous.com/work/F.g 33-35 all f.g http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/2012-olympic-stadium/2012-olympic-stadium1.htmlF.g 36 http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/olympic-map.jpgF.g 37 http://www.sportsister.com/wp-content/uploads2/olympic-park-run-route.pngF.g 38 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.ukF.g 39 http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/07/olympic-park-map.jpgF.g 40 http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/qeop/images/page%20specific/park%20maps/fully%20open%20park%20map.png?h=849&la=en&w=600 F.g 41 http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US20130152486A1/US20130152486A1-20130620-D00011.png

WEBSITES USED FOR TEXThttp://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/urgp_case_study_028_Olympic_park.pdf/$file/urgp_case_study_028_Olympic_park.pdfhttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/nov/12/toxic-waste-clean-up-olympichttp://www.paulwinterandco.com/london-olympic-bid-planning-permissions/p1http://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/lldc/policies/lldcinclusivedesignstrategymarch2013.pdfhttp://populous.com/about/http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/2012-olympic-stadium/2012-olympic-stadium1.htmlhttp://queenelizabetholympicpark.co.uk/~/media/qeop/files/public/publications/s136682673stitchingthefringeapr2013.pdf