merse
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Post by merse on Jul 28, 2010 8:34:54 GMT
 I've been listening to West Ham United's Managing Director Karren Brady talking about her club's long term project to fully explore moving into the Olympic Stadium under the tenancy of either a new body (AEG?) or a residual company set up to administrate the Olympic Park as a whole and was shocked to learn the following : 1- The stadium has only been constructed with 25 year working life span envisaged. 2- The ridiculous inheritence of a plan to "downsize it" by removing the top tier and reducing the capacity to 25,000 3- Only 25,000 of the seats in the Olympic configuration are covered by the roof (55,000 remain open to the elements) 4- There are no stadium toilets whatsoever ~ for all such facilities it being necesary to return to the outside environs  5- A projected outlay of a further £150,000,000 needed to re-configure it to the minimum needs of a Premiership/International football arena 6- No corporate facilities have been built into the stadium as it stands today and will not be for the Olympic Games. For the life of me, the whole concept of allowing a major sporting venue to be designed and constructed "by committee" has been a disaster. It was the projected legacy of the Olymic Park that was the deciding factor in awarding the games to London, yet the actual legacy seems to be of an excellent Olympic Park environment being ruined by a collection of "temporary" sporting venues that stand to be unfit for purpose within a quarter of a century and the whole potential of the project being thrown away through mass incompetence, stupidity and political expediency. What are other people's views on these points?
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Rags
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Posts: 1,210
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Post by Rags on Jul 28, 2010 9:28:22 GMT
1- The stadium has only been constructed with 25 year working life span envisaged. 4- There are no stadium toilets whatsoever ~ for all such facilities it being necesary to return to the outside environs 6- No corporate facilities have been built into the stadium as it stands today and will not be for the Olympic Games. What are other people's views on these points? Well, my flabber has been well and truly gasted! Firstly I would have thought that corporate facilities would have been imperative, but maybe that's just a reaction fo FIFA's requirements and the IOC aren't as demanding. I'm also a bit stunned by the life span - and wonder what West Ham expect to do when the stadium begins to crumble. Rebuild it, seems to be the thrust of Brady's talk, which makes you question why they want to go there in the first place, especially if all the attendant infrastructure (ie transport links, surrounding walkways, parks, buildings, shops etc) is also burdened by a 25-year lifespan... But the lack of toilets is simply mind-boggling. I get the impression that for the Olympics there will be "fan-park" style centres outside the seating areas for eating/drinking and the natural waste produced by such activities. What the designers have failed to notice is that the general public aren't going to like the fact that the journey from the 28th row of the upper tier to the nearest toilet is going to take a long time, not to mention queues and re-entry issues. There will be complaints! Although I am rather intrigued by Brady's implication that the stadium has no turnstiles and its a come-and-go-as-you-please concept: so we don't have to buy tickets for the 100m final then?! I wonder how much influence the 2012 Olympic organisation is having on FIFA's 2018 World Cup hosting decision... |
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Post by aussie on Jul 28, 2010 17:41:20 GMT
Saw a layout diagram in the paper the other day and it looks like a bomb site, they have two years to complete it, I hope they can do it but it doesn`t look like their at the right stage of the build to complete it on time, it looks like they might overshoot the deadline by a minimum of about six months unless they radically change their plans and go slightly less extravagant!
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merse
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Post by merse on Jul 28, 2010 17:58:03 GMT
The build schedule is in fact ahead of schedule and it is anticipated that all venues in the Olympic Park will be available to use for "dummy run" events this time next summer. There was a fascinating programme on one of the Documentary Channels last night recording the construction of the roof for the fabulous Aquatics Centre..................which is actually the intended permanent flagship venue of the Olympic Park and I have coincidentally just finished watching it on Sky+.The fabricating was done at the massive Rowecord Steel plant in Newport, South Wales and it has been erected on site ahead of schedule. When you drive past the park it is exhilerating to see how the roof of the Velodrome exactly replicates on a smaller scale the wave like roof of the Aquatics Centre on the other side of the site and in between is the circular Olympic Stadium with it's unique and iconic floodlighting headframes set within pyramid like structures that are part of the roof supports. It is going to be a truly dramtic and inspiring looking venue!
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