The Olympic Stadium is located south of the Olympic Park, in the island, surrounded by rivers on three sides. Spectators can reach the place through five bridges that connect the site with the surrounding area. There are services for athletes at the Stadium, changing rooms, medical support services and a track of 80 m for the warm-up. The spectator facilities, catering and discharges cargo will be located outside the stadium, in a "podium" that surrounds the stadium. After the Olympics, the stadium can be reduced to 25,000 seats. It will be a place of sports and athletics, as well as cultural and community events. On 11 February 2011, the Olympic Park Legacy Committee defined the West Ham United English Premier League as the highest bidder to take ownership of the stadium, after the Games.
Design and Construction
The stadium design started November 25, 2008. The stadium was designed as a single arena with 80,000 seats. Construction will be the centerpiece of the 2012 Games, in fact, it will host the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics events. At the end of the Olympics will become the new "home" of West Ham United, whose project, which involves the reduction of seats about 60,000 and the maintenance of the athletics track, on February 10, 2011, was considered better than the one presented by Tottenham Hotspur. [1]
In January 2009 made the central area of the field. The seats will be made with surrounding concrete elements assembled on site. In the design, the natural slope of the land has been maintained. The new stadium will present basement zones according to the lines of the terrain. The remaining 55,000 seats will be made with lightweight steel structures that will be removed. [2]
External Coating
To the outside, the project included a plastic liner, or perhaps, an environmentally sustainable fabric, like hemp with a wall mounted design. This outer band had to be 20 meters high and, in length, equal to the entire circumference of the stadium, that is 900 m. Currently this solution has been shelved. The latest solutions presented and approved by the Olympic authorities provide coverage with the banners of 2.5 meters, located in an irregular manner to allow the entry to the stadium from the lower level of the structure, tensioned by several cables. [3]
The Guardian newspaper reported that a member of the stadium design team, Rod Sheard, would prefer that the stadium was surrounded by huge video wall, but it is not done an estimate cost for this idea. [4]
Coverage
The coverage of the stadium will cover about two-thirds of the seats in the stadium. [5] A study managed by the organizers of the games, and lasted more than six months, showed that a partial coverage of the stadium would reduce the negative influence of air currents on the performance of athletes. The roof will be built with a membrane of polymers.
Services for spectators
Inside the stadium, from 80,000 seats, there will not be food outlets. This will reduce the spaces reserved for the construction of kitchens, restaurants and for sprinkler systems. The architects also planned the location of these areas outside the stadium.
For this project, the architects were inspired to the World Cup, in Germany in 2006, where spectators gathered outside the stadium to eat, drink and watch the games in large screens. It was also suggested that services could be made with removable structures with autonomous management of wastewater which would reduce the expensive cost of plumbing and would be very easy during the dismantling of the structure once the games ended.
The "Island Stadium"
The stadium is located on a former industrial site between the Old River Lee (a river that joins the Old Ford Lock), the City Mill River and the old Pudding Mill River; together take part of the system of the Bow Back River. Another branch of this system, the St. Thomas' Creek, which lies 200 meters to the south, completes an "island" surrounded by water. 200 meters east of the river there is an aqueduct; on the eastern shore of this, the Centre will be built for water sports. The stadium island is located at the southern zone of the Olympic Park. The existing water courses will be modified and will surround the stadium, which will be accessed through various bridges located around the perimeter of the building. The London Olympic Committee, in its publications and in the media, now uses, for its location and its shape, the term of Island Stadium to refer to the new Olympic stadium in London. This name could be defined this site for the next years.
Criticism
The Olympic stadium project received different types of criticism. The guest reviews are very mixed. For many it is considered "magnificent" others call it "bowl of blancmange". [6]
The new Olympic Stadium was promoted like an example of "sustainable development", but some critics questioned the architectural and aesthetic choice and its aesthetic value as a national icon, especially putting it in comparison with the Beijing National Stadium. For example, Ellis Woodman (critical of Building Design) about the project wrote: "The principle to be dismantled is good ... it demonstrates a clear interest in creating an economy of means and, as such, it is the antithesis of the Beijing Stadium in 2008. But if this is a result, there is not a good architectural result. The terms of planning that we are seeing are unexciting". Also, he criticizes that there weren't an architectural competition for the selection of the stadium. [7]
This view was continued by Tom Dyckhoff, architecture critic of The Times that described the project as "tragically unexciting" and he commented that "the architecture of 2008 and the 2012 Olympics, in the next years, will be considered by historians as a "cunning indicator of the East and a West decline". [8]
