Repurposing Olympic Venues
The outlook going into the Rio Olympics this year was not great. With toxic waters to compete in, zika mosquitoes, construction cost overruns and mishaps, and Brazil’s overall level of civic discourse with local gangs and the recent impeachment of the President on corruption charges — the Olympics seemed like a burden for Brazil to organize this massive international event.
Like every city preparing for the Olympics Rio’s process was strenuous with its unique hazards and health risks that dissuaded USA golfers, basketball players and other athletes from competing.
A pervasive theme of the Olympics over the past few decades is the enormous, wildly expensive construction undertaking that creates short lived economic stimulation for the city that had hopes of a sustained boost from the international spotlight. The preparations necessary for the massive Olympic games has typically been viewed to have 3 benefits: It will create an economic boost for the months up to and especially the two weeks during the Olympic games, TV viewers across the globe will become more acquainted with the city and will perhaps visit or invest, and the construction of these massive stadiums is a way for the city and country to show its prowess at designing and building entertainment venues, residential complexes and connective infrastructure.
Why not also display the countries commitment to civic infrastructure, quality of life and innovative & adaptive urban design.
As reported by Mike Hower in Greenbiz the international Olympic Committee has made environmental conservation a priority naming the environment the third dimension of “Olympism,” alongside sport and culture. But achieving these sustainable goals has been more difficult. Integrating sustainability into the massive planning efforts that go into the Olympic games is a tough task with the footprints required for construction and the often unseen externalized costs. That’s why Olympic officials have emphasized the importance of host cities being cognizant of “legacy mode” — what happens to the Olympic spaces after the crowds and cameras have left. Historically the legacy of the post-Olympic games impact on the city has been poor as facilities are underutilized and economic benefits are short lived. This hasn’t reflected well on the Olympic Games as a whole, and the International Olympic Committee is recognizing how cities can integrate sustainable urban design into their plans to not just benefit the tourists, athletes and media, but the citizens who live in the city.
The preparations for the Olympic games have become notorious for their cost overruns, disruption to local communities, and disuse of the massively expensive venues just weeks after the games are over. The continued practice of allowing Olympic venues to fall into abandonment has been well documented across the world. From Atlanta, to Athens, to London and Beijing these cities often don’t have long term uses for these amazing venues. Some cities have plans to use the venues sparingly for sporting events, but much like Beijing’s iconic Birds Nest stadium those plans never rarely come to fruition — now that venue stands empty costing $11 million in annual maintenance costs. Why leave these incredible works of architecture vacant instead of planning for them to be repurposed for the needs of the local community?
If planned correctly the Olympic Games can be much more than international cooperation and competition — they can be a boon for the city with improved urban spaces, infrastructure and amenities.
Although the International Olympic Committee said they wanted the games to be a model of sustainability they haven’t exactly achieved that intention. They’ve allowed polluted waterways, the displacement of citizens and golf courses built on top of nature preserves. In recent years sustainable development has been an attractive component of the bidding cities proposals. As Mike Hower writes “As part of their winning Olympic bid in 2009, Rio de Janeiro promised to host “Green Games for a Blue Planet,” claiming that it would use clean energy, clear the city’s clogged streets, preserve its natural spaces and upgrade its “favelas” — slums devoid of reliable infrastructure — to more urbanized areas with functioning utilities, public transportation and other services.” These promises for enhanced urban resilience were never fully actualized as they were proposed.
These idealistic goals for sustainable development can be successfully implemented if properly designed right from the outset. The Olympic Committee and bidding cities can make it a priority to actually plan Olympic infrastructure to be adapted to serve as civic infrastructure long after the cameras have left. The International Olympic Committee could even partner with the United Nations to integrate their Sustainable Development Goals into the on the ground planning of the Olympic venues.
Stadiums can be adapted to be affordable housing units, recreational facilities, public spaces, markets, vertical farming facilities or solar energy farms. Hosting cities can achieve multiple goals simultaneously, putting on an enjoyable Olympic experience for attendees and viewers, while providing their citizenry with an improved quality of life as a result of them hosting the games. Instead of being a process that has an increasingly negative reputation, it can become a massive social impact project to revitalize the local communities.
Why let these great pieces of architecture and infrastructure go wasted beyond their initial use.
The Rio games are implementing a new approach for repurposing their Olympic arenas that should become a very PR friendly secondary purpose for building these venues. For Rio architects designed what they called “nomad architecture”, meaning buildings that can be easily disassembled and reassembled elsewhere into another structure.
Future Arena, Rio’s handball stadium will be taken apart and used to build 4 schools throughout the city that will teach 500 students each. The media center will be reconfigured into a high school dorm, and the 300 acres of Barra Olympic Park will be converted into public parks and open to private development.
The Olympic Aquatics Stadium will be disassembled and rebuilt into two public swimming pools. These lego like designs are an ingenious solution for adaptive reuse. Designing these venues from the beginning to be easily taken apart, reconfigured and repurposed is an innovative idea for the Olympic infrastructure to be used for the civic good. Instead of adding components to a rigid arena, designing it as prefabricated modular parts that will make the repurposing process easier and hopefully more likely to be completed.
According to Jess Keas, an architect whose worked on seven Olympic games, temporary buildings have half the carbon footprint and can cost up to 80% less. These lego like structures can be erected faster and are easier to be dismantled. Rio seems to be starting this trend of designing venues to be repurposed from the beginning.
The next generation of Olympic infrastructure can take lessons from these games with modular stadiums that can be reconfigured into much needed civic facilities. Olympic infrastructure can go beyond new public pools and dorms to be productive, performing architecture that hosts agricultural greenhouses, maker studios and water collection and purification systems. Giving Olympic infrastructure a second life as environmentally and socially responsible civic infrastructure can completely reframe the reputation the Olympic Games preparation has accrued.
The Olympics can be a symbol for benefiting the very local communities that are celebrated in the opening ceremony. Cities can bid for the games not just to get global attention and a (temporary) economic stimulation, but as a mechanism for massive civic investment. The preparation won’t just be how beautiful the stadiums and Olympic Villages are, but how the venues will have a lasting gratitude by having a positive impact for the gracious population of people that hosted the international athletic community.
