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A year ago, former England captain Rio Ferdinand, West Ham United skipper Mark Noble and ex-Brighton striker Bobby Zamora [unveiled] their Legacy Foundation – a regeneration charity with a plan to build a series of social and privately rentable housing schemes, backed by private investors.
The stars (all three of whom have played for West Ham) are coming back to present their first project, worth £400m, to build 1,300 homes on a 22-hectare site in a run-down area in Houghton Regis near Luton.
— the Guardian
For more on housing-related issues in the UK, follow these links:As a new class of super rich investors displace the traditional elite, average Londoners are pushed further and further outside the city limitsAlmost half of Londoners support limits on building heightBrexit will put even more strain... View full entry
Watch professional tennis, and you'll notice that silence makes up a significant part of the game, to the point where spectators can hear the bounce of the ball each time it lands on the playing surface. The acoustics of the new Rossetti Architects-designed roof for the Arthur Ashe stadium, which... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.(Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect... View full entry
More broadly, this reconfiguration would make the games, for the first time, a truly global event. Dozens of countries that could never afford to host the Olympics in their current form – Kenya, Thailand, Chile, to name a few – might easily host a single Olympic sport. Rather than being an occasion for nationalistic displays by a single, powerful host country, the Olympics would become a celebration of human diversity. — Paul Christesen
With overwhelming evidence that hosting the Olympics is a huge burden for several cities, Paul Christesen, a Professor of Classics at Dartmouth, makes a case for the possible advantages of having Olympic sports competitions take place in different cities throughout the globe. He also makes... View full entry
To understand how strange this pairing of client and architect is, you have to contemplate two things: the deeply embedded social progressivism that has become the standard worldview of international architectural firms such as BIG; and organizations such as the NFL, a private club for 1 percenters that bullies municipalities and treats its own players’ health with indifference. Can this marriage last? Is BIG motivated by naivete or cynicism? — The Washington Post
WaPo's art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott discusses the oddities of BIG's recent commission to design a new stadium for the Washington Redskins — and the team's problematic name is just the tip of the iceberg.More on Archinect: Bjarke Ingels Group, BIG, tackles NFL stadium design for... View full entry
The city of Rio de Janeiro canceled the construction contract for the Olympic tennis center on Thursday, just 200 days before the start of the games, fining the consortium responsible for delays and breach of contract for the mostly finished venue. [...]
Rio City Hall, which is responsible for the construction, did not say how the tennis center, which is 90-percent complete, will be finished.
— reuters.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Will Rio's Olympic venues be ready in time for the 2016 Games?Brazilian engineering companies building Olympic venues "very probably" broke laws, accepted bribesOlympic Infrastructure Displaces Brazilian Families View full entry
After 21 years away, the NFL is coming back to Los Angeles. The winner after months of waiting and a busy day of voting and discussion among the NFL team owners in Houston was St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke [...]. The exciting twist is that the San Diego Chargers have the option to join the Rams in their huge, shiny stadium—which is poised to be the NFL's biggest and most expensive venue, with a price tag well over $2 billion. (It'd be the priciest sports venue in the nation's history, too.) — la.curbed.com
Previously in the Archinect news: Organic kale for posh LA football fans: Newly unveiled stadium design sports a farmers' market and VVIP parkingQuest for LA football stadium enters the next round: Carson City Council approves its NFL stadium proposalAEG scraps plans to bring an NFL football... View full entry
On the artificial IJburg island east of Amsterdam, the local Tennisclub IJburg now has an ultra modern clubhouse known as The Couch, designed by MVRDV and Studio Bouwkunde. Construction began later than originally announced last April and the building recently opened its doors to the public... View full entry
David Manica, president of Manica Architecture, the firm designing the stadium, previously described the open-air venue as “like a luxury sports car” and “very aerodynamic.”
A brief video released Monday to promote the project described the stadium as “designed to be an instant classic.” Narrated by actor Kiefer Sutherland, it touted an on-site campus for the NFL that would “power every important league initiative for the next 50 years” as well as a farmers' market [...].
— latimes.com
One must-have LA feature the Times article glanced over is the "VVIP In-Stadium Valet Parking for Premium Fans." After all, who wants to self-park their special-edition Lamborghini next to a stinking Porsche Boxster and then schlep their personally-trained buttocks all the way to the friggin' sky... View full entry
When an NFL team wants to build a new stadium, it often argues that the facility would boost the local economy.
But that is not true, says Roger Noll, a Stanford professor emeritus in economics. [...]
"NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city," said Noll, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
— stanford.edu
Related:How to shop for an NFL stadiumLos Angeles NFL stadium and Convention Center project would boost tax revenue, studies find View full entry
The Louisville house where boxing legend Muhammad Ali – then known as Cassius Clay Jr. – first began training at the age of 12 is about to undergo a $250,000 restoration. Currently in a dilapidated state, the small house on Grand Avenue was purchased by real estate investor and boxing fan... View full entry
Whatever your feelings are toward the Olympic Games, plans for the upcoming U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum and Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs are pushing forward so far. For starters, the Museum unveiled Diller Scofidio + Renfro's initial design concepts for the 60,000 sq.ft building, set to... View full entry
The Carson City Council unanimously approved a privately financed stadium for the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders on Tuesday night, barely two months after the public announcement of the $1.7-billion project.
"There are two things we need in California: rain … and football," Carson Mayor Albert Robles said after the 3-0 vote. "And football is coming to Carson!"
— latimes.com
Previously: AEG scraps plans to bring an NFL football stadium to downtown LAIs LA Finally Going to Get a Football Stadium? View full entry
After investing five years and $50 million in an attempt to bring an NFL team back to Los Angeles, AEG is abandoning plans for its Farmers Field football stadium downtown.
The sports and entertainment conglomerate is no longer in discussions with the NFL or any teams about the project, company officials said Monday. [...]
In recent weeks, competing stadium proposals in Inglewood and Carson, backed by NFL team owners, have overshadowed the AEG plan.
— latimes.com
Previously: How to shop for an NFL stadiumIs LA Finally Going to Get a Football Stadium?Farmers Field: Bringing Football Back on a Need-to-Know Basis View full entry
In the last 20 years, just one NFL stadium has been built solely through private funding. [...]
Still, when it comes to getting the best deal out of an arena, leaving taxpayer money off the tab is only a good start.
Studies have repeatedly shown that sports teams don’t have the far-reaching economic impacts that one might assume, and experts have noted that stadiums aren’t as catalytic as some franchise owners might tout.
— nextcity.org
Previously: Is LA Finally Going to Get a Football Stadium?Special law for NFL stadium project unconstitutional, lawsuit claimsFarmers Field: Bringing Football Back on a Need-to-Know Basis View full entry