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Cost of 2012 Olympic pool triples
Despite a reduction in size and other design changes to reduce the cost, the price of the Acquatics Centre, by Zaha Hadid, for the 2012 Olympics in London, has more than tripled, from £75 million to £242 million. From BBC News
6 Comments
I wonder whether or no they will f**k with her design even more now?
Two more wings, perhaps?
well, if her design is 3x the budget, then did she f**d it herself??
hope she's getting paid a fixed % of the construction costs... that would be a sweet windfall for any firm!
yea publicly she's getting a bum deal with that project, despite the prestige/potential $$, but the increase in project cost has been all client spurred
Yes, Hadid is in a no-win situation with this one.
Client changes, plus the shortage of contractors willing to work with a nightmare organisation such as the ODA, means that everyone is marking up their costs massively. For the ODA to say construction inflation and VAT have caused the price rise is ludicrous.
But this, combined with the cancellation of the Architecture Foundation HQ, makes Hadid look like an architect who can't bring things in on budget, when the real culprits are the UK construction industry and developers.
"(ODA) said construction inflation and VAT had raised the price.
An ODA spokesman said the centre's original estimated cost of £75m was based on 2004 prices."
if this is their alibi, they've fingered whoever was responsible for costing as incompetent beyond repair. what we need to see is what they assumed for escalation vs. how much market prices really have risen. I somehow don't think it's been 300% over and above whatever it was they assumed...
but I wouldn't be surprised if their initial figure was based on ultra-optimistic estimates from people who hadn't given too much time to the demands of the design, and as this thing approaches reality the devil lurking in the details has been coming out to play. hard to lay blame once that starts happening, but it does start from the design...
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