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Olympic stadium is 'vision for city's future'
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent7 Nov 2007
The Olympic stadium was today hailed as a "beacon" for London as the final designs of the venue were unveiled.
Olympics chiefs said the architectural flagship of the 2012 Games would stand out on the east London skyline and herald a "new era" of stadium design around the world.
Reaching the biggest milestone yet for the Games project, the designs detailed how the 80,000-capacity venue would be transformed after the Games in an unprecedented feat of engineering.
Mayor Ken Livingstone said: "(The stadium) will act as a beacon symbolising the extraordinary transformation and regeneration of east London as a result of staging the 2012 Games and the permanent legacy of new sports and community facilities for London."
Stadium architect Rod Sheard, of HOK Sport, said: "The design is a response to the challenge of creating the temporary and the permanent at the same time - that is the essence of the design for the stadium. A new era of Olympic stadium design will be launched in 2012, demonstrating how a successful event can be blended with the long-term needs of the community."
The circular venue will host the track and field events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies.
The main features of the design are:
* A sunken bowl housing the field of play and a lower tier. These 25,000 permanent seats bring the fan closer to the action.
* 55,000 seats on an upper level to be removed afterwards. Games chiefs are looking for a buyer, possibly the host of the 2016 Olympics.
* A cable-supported roof 28 metres in circumference, providing cover for two thirds of spectators. Games chiefs have taken the calculated risk of not having a more expensive full roof considering the event takes place in the drier weeks of the year. After a six-month study they are convinced the venue will not be plagued by cross-winds that might invalidate world records
* A "wrap" around the stadium structure decorated with art, probably with illustrations of former Olympic greats. The fabric curtain also serves to cover up the stadium's rudimentary temporary structure
* Groups of pods situated around the concourse for merchandise and catering facilities These are inspired by the "fan zones" at last summer's football World Cup in Germany
John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, said: "London's Olympic stadium is designed to be different. 'Team Stadium' have done a fantastic job against a challenging brief - their innovative, groundbreaking design will ensure that the Olympic stadium will not only be a fantastic arena for a summer of sport in 2012 but also ensure a sustainable legacy for the community who will live around it."
Construction firm Sir Robert McAlpine - builders of Arsenal's Emirates stadium - is expected to begin building work on the venue as early as next April, which would be several months ahead of schedule.
Meanwhile Olympics chiefs continue the search for an anchor tenant having ruled out the possibility of it becoming home to a Premiership football club such as West Ham or Tottenham Hotspur.
The ODA says the venue will be have a "multi-sport" use but is primarily a much-needed world class athletics facility for London as promised the International Olympic Committee during the bid.
Olympics chiefs received high-level endorsement today amid recent concerns that the facility might not meet with standards for international competition once it was converted after 2012.
Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations appears satisfied that an athletics warm-up track sufficiently close to the stadium - a prerequisite of IAAF meetings - is integral to London's plans after 2012.
He said: "The sport of athletics has been in desperate need of a world class competition facility in London especially for international events. These plans guarantee long-term benefits to Londoners and the future of international athletics competition within the city."
Last month the ODA announced that the stadium budget had risen from £280million to £496million.They said increase was largely due to the inclusion of VAT and the fact that costs were now at 2012 instead of 2004 prices.
Sebastian Coe, chairman of the organising committee, Locogs, said: "The stadium will stand for everything we talked about in the bid - the theatre within which the Games will be played out and leaving behind a top class sporting and community facility."
Reader views (12)
My Dutch friends are still laughing at what they discribed as the giant child's play pen. I was in Shanghai for the pan Asia games, if you want to see a stadium with the wow factor go see that, perhaps you could buy that for London, instead of the sad Lego effort by Team Sport. It's the logo all over again, a closed competition leading to a boring utillterian design. The roof fails to cover all spectators. Does Sebastian Coe really want the site of the stadium emptying out on world wide TV beacause it pours with rain on a blue ribbon day as it often does at another famous event. Up to now I have been a huge supporter of the London games, shooting my mouth off to every non British person about it. "Just you wait till you see our stadium", now in shame I will say no more. Seems to me with athletes running the show much thought has gone into talking care of those taking part and the public less so, with nasty plastic seats. If it rains well some of the 80,000 people will just have to get wet. It's our games we pay, we should have been given a choice of design of say 5 like the I.O.C with bid cities ,save the games, amend the design. As to what's left, who wants a 25,000 roofless stadium useless in a wet winter season and prone to weather damage i.e high maintenance costs.
- Karl Forsyth-Gray, Amsterdam, Holland, 08/11/2007 23:19
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Disappointing. Nothing architecturally outstanding, not even a removable Wembley-type arch or something.
And for something intended to be so uniquely practical the prospect of all food, toilets etc located outside in little pods in an open area renowned to be cold and windy (Thames estuary winds) even in the middle of summer suggests insufficient thought gone into it. Trees planted will have to be almost mature.
- Pete, london, 08/11/2007 12:00
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I think some of the politician speeches must of been written before actually seeing this rather dull design. Saying it was a 'beacon' is a tad over exaggerated, for what in essence is a very expensive temporary building, with no roof.
Whatever happened to the first proposal? This was by far the superior design to this rubbish.
This is why design competitions are so good.
Whoever made the awful decision to hand it straight to HOK sport has made a critical error of judgement.
- Christian H, london, 08/11/2007 03:16
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Everyone is so quick to criticize. London is a world class city. If only the inhabitants would be a bit more proud of it, and stop knocking this amazing project which we have the honour to host.
If Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Berlin can stage world class events why not us? The Stade de France and Barcelona's Olympic Stadium are National Treasures, not white elephants!
We need to stop giving air time to the moaning minnies who think leaving that part of east London as a derelict wasteland is a great idea.
London deserves this chance to regenerate and put on a brilliant Games.
- Kevin, London, 07/11/2007 23:35
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The original costings were an estimate based on the 'concept' of a stadium, and before any design and associated building costs had been determined.
If this is not a correct interpretation, why is the design and increased building cost only being revealed today.
This was another morally corrupt deception of the public (yet again) in order to win the 2012 Olympics.
- Howard, Potters Bar, 07/11/2007 20:58
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What a waste of money. Why not use the already good stadiums we have or give the games to some other country that would benifit more. Taxes to go up I think? Petrol to reach £2 per litre, and the list goes on.
- Andy, Scotland, 07/11/2007 19:14
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I love it, there are not many comments so far, but all have sniffed the wild fragrance of heady politics and the massive blotted ego's of our meglamaniacal out of control politicians wanting to stamp their names on history, leaving the cost to future generations. Yes I think we should call it the 'Sir Ken Livingstone C-Charge free' Stadium... unless you want to park there. Tax payers of London be scared.... very scared.
- Colin Bond, london, england, 07/11/2007 17:59
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First impressions are very good it looks stunning. Brilliant idea with the netting, its going after the games, as the stadium will be reduced in capacity. No need to build a structure that costs even more and then demolish half of it.
Bring on the games.
- Alan Bentley, Derby, 07/11/2007 17:40
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£496million and providing cover for only two thirds of spectators and games chiefs have taken the calculated risk of not having a more expensive full roof? Begs the question is Wimbledon Centre Court wasting their money or will rain stop play in Stratford. A fabric curtain which serves to cover up the stadium's rudimentary temporary structure very pretty I'm sure. I can see that's its public/lottery money being spent here, no private funded company would put up with this half hearted effort.
- Nigel, Brighton, 07/11/2007 15:47
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White elephant. I thought we had one already which is now called O2 stadium or something.
- Stevo, London, 07/11/2007 15:36
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£496 million !!! Why don't they tell the truth and say it's going to cost £800 - £1,000 million !!!
- Tony, london, 07/11/2007 13:31
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I quite like it, although I preferred the more organic design shown in the earlier simulations and images. How can the cost have risen so much, though?! What kind of incompetent budget staff could make such a mistake?
- Peter, Collier's Wood, London, 07/11/2007 12:42
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