BD Exclusive: The London 2012 Olympic stadium, designed by HOK Sport and Peter Cook, could be wrapped in a material made from the cannabis family of plants, it has emerged. For the first time, details of the stadium's layout, scale, appearance and the external materials to be used - which could include hemp - have been revealed in a new planning application. Images and more @ BD
43 Comments
it looks like something an engineer would design.
although i respect and admire peter cook's work, i'm not too sure of the direction he is going with this design.
where's the flare?
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
very Lame
i beg to differ and suggest some of you expand on your commentary in a less campy way, if you want to criticize the design in a legible and convincing manner...
this is what i see so far;
the building is not only very thoughtfully structured with apparently light, almost transparent framework (at least what i can tell from the renderings) but, the architects also created a very nice and humane environment around the stadium as the drawings suggest. this is a very important part of this design and immediatly engages the building in more than just an assembly building siting.
i will go as far as to say, i see more ideas in this stadium than arup & herzog & de meuron & ai weiwei's bird's nest so far. or at least more useful treatment of the building in the long run. some of the ideas like permeability and real time communicative (bulletin board like) functions of the stadium are very well placed.
the idea of material reduction itself is very commendable in this age of resource depletion.
i am also weary of one liner heavy handed and limited sensational expressions around the higly exploited olympic architecture lately.
yesterday i posted an article by paul goldberger, who brings some obvious points about this, talking around some 'deep' ideas used in the conceptual development of water bubble and the bird nest.
Goldberger on Beijing
i'll elaborate...i think the idea of material reduction relates to my engineering comment. it has been reduced to a matter of efficiency and homogenous structural bays...boring. this is justified by claiming the building is sustainable. for me, if formally expressive buildings are criticized for the lack of sustainable consideration, the same criticism should be placed on buildings that are sustainable, but lack any aesthetic consideration i.e. touting one does not justify the lack of the other.
although the scale is more humane in comparison, it is still very much an object in the landscape. again, pretty conventional for a stadium.
do you have an argument for why stadiums should not also maintain an element of conventionality? is that at all possible?
on other points;
as soon as you grade the terra firma and start to construct a building, an 'object' starts to take a shape.
i think your argument about lack of aesthetic consideration for this design is either weak or subjective or both, it comes out as throwing a personal veil over what is communicated on the proposed drawings. you might need to launch a better explanation for that. it already 'de facto' accepts lack of aesthetic consideration, without any further reason applicable to this project. this is very far flung and devoid of convincing qualifications.
structural engineering uses well thought out 'efficency' as it's departure point. if a designer undermines that, one have a possibility of failing as a designer.
and, who's and what boredom are you talking about?
what is criticism if it is not subjective? the comment is a response to the tone of the article and how it touts the sustainability of the project as reason for it being a 'good' design. my comment is to say that that word is a veil over what is allowed to be criticized for aesthetic value these days. are we turning into engineers or are we designers?...the comment was meant to be general. (and if anyone thinks i'm arguing against sustainable thinking in design, then you're missing my point).
stadiums can be a typology for innovation, and i consider stadiums that depart from convention (in at least one aspect) much more appealing and thought out e.g. hitoshi abe's world cup stadium that integrates the surrounding site or H&M's bird nest that achieves a large spanning structure through redundancy instead of mere efficiency. whatever shortcomings these projects may have, at least they are speculations...cook's design may good, but in my eyes, peter cook is an innovator, so i'm asking, where is the innovation?
too funny. it reminded me that you expect architects to be like juke boxes who deliver your favorites upon your request.
i'd care less about how you qualify or don't qualify peter cook.
i know, and i mean it with admiration dot, that you are an exceptionally eager student. but you don't really know what peter cook and hok are innovating as they are doing architecture. or what their priorities are, as architects regarding this particular building.
i care, if you talk about;
is innovation a requirement for good public space?
is bird's nest not foremost a stadium but a speculative innovation?
if so, what does it invent?
if we want to have a large spanning structure, do we have to resort to an h&m sketch? how many more buildings do you think will be made like bird's nest because it is a good innovation?
so on...
you are asking if architects are turning into engineers. and downgrading engineers to a less than aestheticians, boring etc. i find that arrogant. like, arrogant without a cause...
i grew up a short distance away from an ancient roman amphitheater near ephesus, sort of like stadium, if you are talking typology. very little has changed, maybe better box seats etc. but very little. i think the reason for that is, because what happens in them have not changed all that much.
now, i think it is useless to think that a *bird's nest makes a good stadium. they are two different things. but maybe that's how you regard speculation, for instance. maybe you find the look of certain b. nest is more pleasing to the eye than let's say a water bubble.
or wait.., it looks most innovative when a bird's nest put next to a bubble..
you see it gets even more absurd...
just for the closer, at this point, pc & hok drawings are very speculative. and so far i find out what they speculate might be series of good things for the public who will be benefiting from them. like the people who will enjoy beijing stadium. i have watched some of the best and innovative soccer playing in some of the worst built stadiums, which is another post in itself...
*there are other stadiums but we sort of established bn as reference...
"The Olympic spirit can be sprinkled across the UK under plans for the demountable landmark main stadium
Main stadiums of previous Olympics have been criticised for being underused after the event.
But when the 2012 games are over, London’s Olympic stadium will be scaled down, with seating and stands re-used at sports venues across the UK.
The £450M demountable stadium concept was developed in response to an International Olympic Committee (IOC) commissioned report that recommended Olympic venues leave a better legacy for future use.
“A stadium that can be converted in an economic way has been the main driver for the design brief,” says London 2012 infrastructure director James Bulley.
For the Games, the 80,000 seat arena is designed with athletes in mind. This means making sure
it is not a wind tunnel and that it creates the feeling of an enclosed space so that it can retain the unique noise and atmosphere created by an Olympic audience.
An inspirational indicative design has already been developed by London-based Foreign Office Architects, with HOK Sport, perhaps the world’s most renowned stadium specialist.
The result is organic architecture that rises out of the ground, crowned by a spectacular array of roof sections that suggest the rippling muscles of an athlete.
After the Games, efforts will turn to relocating between 40,000 and 45,000 of the seating capacity to venues across Britain.
Most likely, the arena will be converted into a 20,000 to 25,000 seat stadium which will be a new athletics stadium for London and home for one of London’s top rugby clubs.
The grandstand would remain, retaining all the state of the art media, changing room, conferencing and banqueting facilities.
The top two tiers of the steel and concrete structure would be dismantled leaving the lowest tier.
The roof will simply be lowered to fit over the reduced structure but enough room would be left to refit a second tier should an increased capacity of 40,000 to 45,000 be needed."
http://www.construct2012.co.uk/nav?page=construct2012.contentspage&fixture_page=2901006&resource=2901006&view_resource=2901006
^
those are incredibly useful and innovative design elements.
1. for clarity, it seems the article and peter cook's design are about two different stadiums.
2. the issue of downsizing olympic stadiums is at least a decade old. it was done in atlanta - olympic stadium downsized 1/3 to accomodate permanent baseball stadium. i don't think there is enough information about pc/hoks proposal to see how that issue is built into the design.
3. the comment about engineers is not to thumb my nose at a profession, but to highlight two different sets of priorities and ways of thinking...shifting roles is also another conversation in itself.
4. your responses to my comments are entirely unfair, but i am sure with the best intentions :)
i would love to continue the discussion, but i have a thesis to churn out.
signing out...
respectfully...
if you think this is unfair, wait a week or so when i finish writing my interview with sir peter cook.;.))) even though, we didn't talk about the stadium but about a different subject..
keep up the good work tim. i am sure you'll do fine w/ your project...
hmmm, without getting into architectural criticism per sae, I will add that I find it somewhat disappointing. Why? On what is the eve of the Beijing Olympics I had hoped that Peter Cook with his Archigram ambitions would have been able to reshift the lure to London, and also away from Zaha's much pressed under-budget/over-spend.
Nonetheless it has a care about it typical of HOK Sport.
lure...interesting word choice a'techno. clearly this project is less about being bait, unlike the work being done for the beijing olympics.
regarding cook and archigram ambitions, i'm no expert, but the ideas behind this proposal seem to be very much part of a lineage that includes walking cities, for instance. no less ambitious, although probably more real.
Orhan, I also find you comments very unfair and totally uninformative - and insulting. Why the hell would you choose to talk down to someone as being "an eager student" when you are yourself obviously nothing more than an eager groupie just stonewalling legitimate criticism of a design by Peter Cook - who you [as someone who grew (tall, not up, it seems) close to an amphitheater and so is gifted with superior insight] interviewed just a sec ago (oh me, oh my!). Grow up.
Most of your answers and statements are nonsense:
- Cook has created his image as an innovator himself: if we seem perplexed by a superiorly dull design by him, I think we can legitimately ask what is going on with the guy (he can design whatever, and as he pleases, but lets be honest, this is not what we hoped for. no one wanted to see another friendly alien, but we wanted to see some creative force behind this scheme. it's not there.)
- defending a conventional and dull project by saying "what's wrong with that?" is really not a defense. It's just avoiding discussion. If something is as everything else, why publish it in the first place? Minimizind structure is the default engineering position, by the way.
- why should we not criticize a stadium for it's design, even though there might be some innovative soccer being played there in the future? The discussion is about design - just saying that something that totally sucks might work someday with the right users is worthless use of your and our time.
what's wrong being an eager student? i consider myself a student. i meant it with an admiration and respect. what is wrong w/ you? the tone of your voice has more to do than discussing with me but carrying a personal beef with me for some reason i don't know. i don't know you at all and i find it extremely biased that you use this type of language carrying the issue outside of the discussion. i use a lot of references from my life experience and what is it to you?
i know dot in person and i carry no personal disrespect for him in fact just the opposite.
and i am no grupie of anybody and i deplore your personal aggression and entitlement that you can talk like this, uncalled.
and further more, you still make absolutely no response to what i have said so far. i won't even say read it again because you are just burning with angst towards me.
you have said nothing to contribute to argument dot talks about. but poorly opted for discussing the discussion.
i keep saying what i see in the project to counter people who say there is no creativity, innovation whatever etc.. in it. dot, to his credit, brought up some issues worthy of thinking about.
you have said nothing but spitted personal insult. both towards me and someone's work.
what would qualify as an innovation and save cook's reputation in 'your' rating system?
what makes a dull project?
these questions are still bypassed and discredited for yours and some other's hi judgment of what good design is...
hence, unqualified points made and arrogance (pehaps elitism better word) without a cause.
anyway, i can't do this anymore unless someone comes and successfully explains why the project is dull, un innovative and less than good design without dodging or resorting to address a personal problem with 'me.'
my mouth is getting dry from repeating questions...
I have read the whole thing. Don't you worry Orhan, sound like they are writing off the design because it doesn't have any fashionable doo dahs they can copy and think they are innovative architect look alikes. Remember Zaha's windows from that time? Everybody does them now. Even she is struggling to solve them herself, people already doing them in their drawings everywhere. It is ridiculously gaseous.
Your questions are very decent.
In fact, what they are thinking of doing with the stadium after the Olympics, is highly innovative if not revolutionary in Olympic architecture.
Take the damn thing apart.
I have this idea of portable Olympic facilitators, which can be shipped to a poor country so the Olympics are not hosted by wealthy nations all the time. But that would be too far out for the big boys right? That would be bad for business right?
People have limited vocabulary these days and horrified with elements they cannot see. They want all the imagining and creative thinking done for them to consume. Asking, "Where is the flare?" Thinking Peter will design just like they have expected, so they can rationalize $35.00 purchase of an Archigram poster.
Mostly, design aficionados looking for a form they can follow and throw a ray of light in their rendering machines.
I sensed no insult in what you have written, other than your usual directness and sincerity, making people taste their own bullshit. I also did not see you alluding to anything to stop others’ criticism. If anything you were pushing dots person to have a more substantial argument.
I commend you for not losing your posture for Helsinki's desperate accusations. His/her comments come out very bandwagon-ish, self referential. Immaturely seeing design discussion as offense and defense. Might be a kid who gets chewed up a lot.
Plain aggressive, while trying to sound authoritative.
Btw, did you ask Peter about what you told me? That was very funny, indeed. You criminal you!
When I grow up, I want to be tall like you. P)
well, I consider calling someone a student and then lecturing them on things "they can't know" insulting - obviously you can spin it anyway you want.
---
Still - if the project has merits, other than being conventional (and in that, probably functional and familiar to it's users expectations) + well-engineered (in it's use of material) - the images and the text of the article do not present them.
The "nice scale at the fringes" argument I don't really consider valid - why would you claim that Orhan? Because they put a fair around the thing in the rendering? Come on. A few parasols do not a human scale make.
And re-use is referred to in the article in a way that just suggests some icing on the cake - when someone says, "yeah, this could be used for, um, other purposes after the actual event" - you can be pretty sure that whatever the material is, this scheme is not going to work.
op-ed - the recycling of structure, rebuilding the same thing somewhere else etc. have been very well, wittily and interestingly studied by Cedric Price amongst others - I don't think it's a new concept concerning structures for big events and crowds (if you referred with "Olympic" to greek architecture, you might have a point, though...)
It's not so much elitism or getting chewed up (hasn't happened in a while, as far as I remember... Could be my memory-block working overtime...) - but a certain anger rises when I feel people talking down to others using their position/age/connections/whatever as leverage - not arguments.
---
and finally:
If this project of p.cook has any merit to be published, other than it being generally newsworthy, I can't see them.
It's not any swooshes and swishes I/we are looking for: for an example, the aforementioned stadium by Abe is exceptional in it's relation to the surroundings and engineering - it's no blob or shard, but good architecture. The Braga stadium is another example of thought-out, interesting design.
We are looking for good, inspiring architecture, Cook has not provided it, so we are critical. No need to label critics as people wanting to grab the shiniest new candy. I'd be content with interesting architecture.
interesting, to me, was that the previous iteration was so simple. i appreciated that simplicity in light of all the fetishized forms and surfaces we see so often.
i like the willingness to use 'soft stuff' - not depending on the structure and solid form for the expression but letting the curtain installation be part of the building's expression and contrasting the fine/thin frame against the billowy scrim.
the difference with this newer version is that prickly crown, which i hope has some new program-driven purpose. before it was just a smooth circle at the top, looking very clean and providing a nice frame/profile through which to see sky. if the pointy triangles are a response to the 'it's-not-interesting-enough' comments of the last round, then i'm disappointed.
but i still think it's much more elegant and the ideas expressed about reuse and dismantling (if they come to fruition) make this stand head and shoulders above zaha's aquatic center project in which it has become more and more clear that her ideas/forms haven't meshed well with either need or with cost, causing the project to become a mish-mash with her original concept buried in the middle somewhere.
op-ed...;.)
helsinki,
i have one word for you.
you are making personal lamentations around the things i have not said or implied.
i have not lectured anybody. i simply asked few questions about qualifying for statements like dull, boring, uninnovative. repeat...
by the way, the BD report is a total piece of short, agitative news reporting, which i would hardly call 'article'. and i am surprised we didn't even talk about that. it says little about the design, other than few speculative renderings.
a pictorial case study;
abe=innovative/integrating surrounding site (sure, 1 heroic view from the gated community below!
(more pics)
cook/hok=boring/dull
+ pretty much democratic views on first come first served basis.
i am with the boring!
interesting write up on Miyagi Stadium by hitoshi abe from a stadium site. talking about a white elephant which was later named "Boondoggle".
an assessment coming from a sport related site, nevertheless.
do we not talk about these issues? or, are we limited to cement detailing and lonely masculine concrete piles sitting on an vast depressing parking lot? who is kidding whom? where is the great architecture? so far it is a failed project as far as i am concerned, for the reasons stated in the article alone. it didn't work after the world cup. this is very much related to some issues london venue is said to tackle.
but i still like Miyagi Stadium for one reason...
i love soccer. next week is EURO 2008... see the stadiums. some in urban context. making it architecturally more challenging.
some people 'think' they are critics, but there is no criticism if you turn the blind eye to reality.
I loved those stadiums they did in Porto...pity they haven't figured yet that there are eager young students waiting to see them all collected together. I smell a monograph coming
is one of my all time favorite soccer stadiums. i'd love to watch a match there.
i think, 'that' stadium really integrates the surroundings. it is a small gem of a masterfully sited building. i also like allianz arena here, and here.
hok is doing this stadium in istanbul which i am against for going bit out of scale in such a beautiful area of istanbul and replacing a beautiful old stadium built in 1939. i watched few great games there.
i am particularly interested in stadium buildings integrating into existing urban fabric. i think hok has lost a great opportunity there. there are 4 other stadiums in istanbul of this size already. one of them built for the olympic bid they never won. it is way out of town. they hardly use it. roads are not even finished. waste of money/resources. like abe's stadium however beautiful it might be to some fans.
how many big stadiums in london already? they just finished wembley...
dismantling stadium is not only great idea but also a great statement. like some archigram buildings consuming themselves if not needed. glen small also worked around that idea in his biomorphic biosphere city, 1965-1977.
Yes, the Braga is a success, and sneers aside, I like Abe's stadium too, even if it's ambitions might not all have been resolved.
And yes, the Cook/HOK stadium renderings are nice when put beside way more gray images of reality... Comparing photos to renderings seems like something a person who 'thinks' he is a critic but turns a blind eye to reality would do. Also pitting supposedly un-democratic (the gated community surrounding-snipe) - against something supposedly democratic (a cost effective, maximized seating area?) is a nice argument. oh well. I guess I don't doubt you are with the boring. Maybe we'll just have to disagree. Also I don't doubt the value of the idea of dismantling buildings/re-building them elsewhere - it's just one of those sentiments that is often expressed and rarely executed - so I'll applaud it when it happens. I too totally love self-consuming archigram buildings, but they too, are pretty much on the rendering stage...
I do like soccer, though!
And talking about stadiums in urban fabric, there was a striking rendering (by Gang? maybe?) of a stadium "integrated" into a skyscraper-roofscape. Would be interesting to know what the project was - the image was powerfull, but I don't remember any "facts" about the proposal.
but when convenient to you; no problem of trashing the london design based on renderings.
i am not the one who brought up abe's failed stadium either...
it sits on its own. you can view his masterpiece without the renderings.. sitting pretty with all its might. and local team playing in their beloved Sendai stadium, regardless the lower capacity...
clap hands. he is your man...
you should move to that gated community and feel great, and decipher the integration. if you want to study abe's details for 'your' next project, you can drive to the vast parking lot and sketch all day. i guarantee, you shall learn to do it your own way someday.
better:
Well, let's wait and see - hope this HOK/Cook stadium turns out nicely. More than that, I sincerely hope it is possible to take it apart after it has run it's course. That will be my cue to clap hands.
Abe's stadium has quite a subtle relationship with it's own size and configuration: the sweeping roof, lifted of the ground lightly with the help of actually innovative engineering; the joining of landscape and building with the hillside; the free circulation making access possible outside the times of events or games (that's pretty democratic, right?). These I don't see as failures. The stadium is not perfect, though - but whatever it's faults, these should not be attributed to the environment and it's development (what's with this obsession with a nearby gated community?)
I'm a bit surprised that you choose to defend Cooks stadium so fiercely - hoping to find things of value: attention to scale in the renderings (I found no evidence of considerations of that sort - except the umbrellas, of course...) or integration into the surrounding (as before mentioned, it IS a very big object in a flat landscape, not even trying to fit in) or some innovative aspects in the accompanying pr-patter: the hemp, dismantling the structure, ... The only real values mentioned so far have been: conventionality and thus cost effectiveness and lightness, which can't be bad in any case. This is just not enough for anything to be considered of special worth as architecture, sorry.
well, we are all still eager students, I guess.
helsinki,
you are impossible..
who is obssesed with gated community? and, have i mentioned scale in any of my now thousand + words? (except in relation to urban context in istanbul)
i said 'humane.' that doesn't automatically translate to 'scale' (another problem w/ your limitations), not that it would be bad but, i didn't say human scale in relation to the london stadium... i said humane because architects spent time and effort to develop an environment around the stadium to encourage public activities instead of treating it as a vast concrete parking lot where their stadium sits on.
you are delusional and aways twisting words. and still have no place to go.
are you also dot? what's your real name, i'd like to know who you are if it is okay with you?
Ok, I thought you used here "humane scale" as someone would use "human scale" - places and spaces designed for human interaction and activity. Sorry about missing the "e". I felt that your talk about this was just wishful thinking about the project, I don't really see this 'humane scale' anywhere (only if "humane" is somehow synonymous with "humongous"). Well, the project is still a sketch, so we can hopefully inject it with whatever wishes we have. I guess that is ok, but here the hope stands on a weak foundation. (In all fairness, it is a funny foundation - if you see cook intending the merry humane activities taking place under/in the bright blimps and umbrellas of the renderings.)
I'm sorry if you think I'm delusional, I thought we were discussing the merits and weaknesses of a few particular designs - my agressive tone in the beginning of the discussion rose from my perception that you were acting patronisingly and in a condescending way toward critics who raised legitimate questions about this design. You did this by taking up seniority, experience and personal history, to show that somehow your opinion matters more - you relied on devices other than argument and clarification.
I kinda hoped the steam would have cleared off, some of the discussion was actually on fruitfull tracks (a few posts ago) - and the problematics of stadium design deserve discussion.
And no, I'm not Dot - thanks for suspecting that, though, I thought his criticism was spot on and your (in my opinion unfair) response got me writing in the first place. Finally, I wish you would not ask my name (or where I live) after calling me delusional twice, impossible, and clearly being generally upset with my comments.
all this seniority, personal history, experience, bla bla is your bullshit... i do not need any of those.
i have brought in, concrete examples (no pun) into this discussion whenever necessary.
regarding name; nevermind that i asked.
one more point, before i forget.
i think you are the one, who undermined 'dot' to a great degree by going on and on about supposingly speaking up for him.
he doesn't have any problem of being a student. in fact he runs one of the best school blogs here in archinect.
it is you who has all these credibility issues. it really reads out that way.
did you ask tim about repping him this way?
anyway, i am willing to go on, if you can discuss the olympics stadium proposal and its qualities, bad or good. please do not use words like it is boring etc. without qualifying discussion/explanation.
Ok, fair enough - let's get back to the stadiums... [concerning the above posts: - I think I mentioned dot only in passing - I was feeling angry at your attitude myself & not pretending to speak up for him. - I have no idea who "tim" is - and still, "eager student" is a term I would hate to be thrown my way, being a student or not. - And, I promise not to use words like boring, if you promise not to tell about your growing up near an amphiteater or interviewing P. Cook, puh-lease.]
Yes, my argument against this design, or maybe more against publishing & celebrating it - is that the values and merits are pretty much totally dependent on the execution. Maybe our quite opposite views are guided just by a certain difference in 'humor'. Looking at the renderings and squinting our eyes, we just see a totally different project.
To my eyes, the scheme is:
1. a conventionally engineered framework - that could seem light, if it were not for the repetitiveness of its parts.
2. A project, that supposedly is going to be partly redistributed to different locations after it's use - here I think it could work in a non-democracy, but counting on this kind of "future use" seems like wishful thinking to me.
3. And this object, placed in a landscape, is big to my eyes, and unconcerned about it's surroundings - maybe there is activity, points of contact between the users and the building, that break down the scale, somehow, but I can't see it from these images, without my pink eyeglasses.
4. And the question of material exploration (the recyclable, possibly partly hemp, facade) is something that is just tacked on - why this is done, I have no clue, and don't find the excercise interesting - it seems just an extra "sustainability point" - 100% pr-talk.
stadiums, by their nature, require repetition in their parts. in fact, many large buildings have to be repetitively calculated or quantified for structural integrity. i don't see anything unusual about that or perceive it as less than 'great building design' process.
to dismantle the extra spectator bleachers of the stadium makes a lot of sense and might make the structure bearable after the olympics in a park setting, from what i speculate.
an 80,000 people stadium versus 10,000 or less seat amphitheater for local events.
again, the project is very speculative with the information given so far, but since we are talking about it.....
i sympathize with the idea of less than iconic building centered goal of the committee and commend the architects for following through on that, at least at the development stage, so far.
i personally oppose any kind of big super event and building carnage usually surrounds olympics, from the point of view of poorer nations, who are made to accept they could never host this sports event.
do we need olympics to improve architectural thought every four years?
would architecture then becomes growth dependent on certain olympic organizing committee's decisions and politicking and awarding contracts to certain firms and developers? sensationalism and propaganda feeding the kitty every four years.
do you know who abebe bikila is?
he is a good example of one of my points; you can run bare foot but still win a gold in the marathon.
I really think some kind of internal struggle must have occured at HOK and P. Cook's involvement in the design process was limited somehow.
I just can't see him, or his joyful childishness, in this design. Maybe in the kiosks around the perimeter, but nowhere in this thing have a set of rules been challenged, assumptions thrown out, or possibilities entertained.
This criticism has nothing to do with this not being a friendly alien, or a plug-in city...this building has no charm, and strip everthing else away from P. Cook's architecture and you will always be left with at least charm. It's in his DNA, and his DNA is glaringly, and unquestionably absent here.
Orhan:
Yes, maybe we need the "barefoot- buildings", so we can focus on the essentials of sport.
Buildings of an "olympic scale" really have no place in a cityscape - the options seem to be either to do something that can be made to "vanish" one way or other - through re-use / dismantling or then just focus on doing your own formal/structural research and create a blip on the media-screen - as HdeM have done, pretty much emphasising how the most important view of the stadium will be the shots and clips filmed from helicopters and shown on CNN.
Obviously, the former approach is the "right" one, at least when considering urban environments - one can (as I would) argue that it does not create interesting architecture. But hopefully architecture built with such intent manages to avoid the devastation of the olympic scale and still be able to stage the event - which should be the important part, anyway.
It is a bit depressing that the problem of olympic architecture does not seem to have an answer that would be simultaneously interesting architecturally and commendable as a part of the urban environment.
mminlondon: I think the idea of dismantling is pure Cook - the friendly alien looked like an archigram building, but this stadium will perform like one - if it will be dismantled and partly re-used, like an appliance used for a special need and the re-deployed. The spirit is there, without the form. So, it's a mature "Cook" scheme presenting earlier ideas in a pragmatic way. I also think it is dull, though.
I'm sure Peter had a lively discussion with someone about demountable architecture, but then HOK took the idea, gave it to an intern, and lip-smackingly sucked the marrow of life out of it.
Sidenote: these supergraphics on the hemp are so banal. Peter Cook would roast the guy that drew those.
The proposed building is not actually a demountable structure in the end, so when the people leave, never to come east of Canary Wharf again, when the hemp decays and the shipping containers rust away, then the frame will remain as an urban ruin and testament to early 21st century, forest for the trees, green-vision.
This is possible. even likely. but we should keep our fingers crossed.
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