Later this month, about 900 of the 1,500 families who live in Vila União will start to move out to make way for the TransOlímpica rapid bus system (BRT) to be built for the 2016 Rio Olympics. It is one of the biggest favela resettlements since Rio was chosen to host the games, with some 500 families also resettled from 2010 to 2011 for the construction of the TransOeste BRT. — Al Jazeera

We are very sad to learn of the passing of amazing designer Deborah Sussman, who died this morning after a battle with cancer." — @DesignObserver — Twitter

It was billed as a chance to transform Greece's image abroad and boost growth but 10 years after the country hosted the world's greatest sporting extravaganza there is little to celebrate at the birthplace of the modern Olympic Games. [...]

For Greeks who swelled with pride at the time, the Games are now a source of anger as the country struggles through a six-year depression, record unemployment, homelessness and poverty.

Greece has struggled to generate revenue from the venues. — uk.reuters.com

Zaha Hadid Architects has admitted it has made changes to its design for the stadium that will be the centrepiece of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

The firm has faced hostility in Japan with critics complaining that the proposed 80,000-seat stadium is too big, too costly and clashes with Tokyo’s urban planning.

At the weekend, 500 protestors marched around the existing National Stadium to demonstrate over plans to replace it with Hadid’s proposal [...]. — bdonline.co.uk

3xn was chosen by the International Olympic Committee as the architectural partner to design the new IOC Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC selected the Danish firm after a collective decision by the IOC Architecture College during a March 25 meeting...

The design for the new headquarters will be revealed at a later date arranged by the IOC. — bustler.net

Rio de Janeiro is set to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and there are two starkly different visions of what that will mean for the "marvelous city," as it is known[...]

"Instead of creating a space of conviviality, a space of shared culture, of community, of conversation, you are going to have this very isolated element where after 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to be dead. You are creating banks, parking lots, Trump towers," Gaffney said. "It's been rezoned for 50-story buildings." — npr.org

Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s vision of new sporting venues across the boroughs fizzled, and New York lost its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. But what if the city had tried to get the Winter Olympics instead? It would probably take more hubris than even this city can muster, but the exercise provides some telling measures of scale. — nytimes.com

Six months after the Japanese government approved Hadid’s proposals, the country’s parliament has signalled a reverse in its support.

Hakubun Shimomura, the minister in charge of education, sports and science, said that the New National Stadium would cost 300 billion yen (£1.8 billion) to build and that was “too massive a budget”.

The design of the 80,000-seat stadium will be preserved but Mr Shimomura said: “We need to rethink this and scale it down.” — standard.co.uk

Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki has gathered a throng of designers including Toyo Ito, Sou Fujimoto, Kengo Kuma and Riken Yamamoto to oppose the design of Zaha Hadid's 2020 Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.

Maki, who was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1993, has organised a symposium where Japanese architects will protest against the scale of the proposed 80,000-seat stadium, which is set to become the main sporting venue for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games. — Dezeen

[It] is the same technology as we use in Holland. It’s made up of concrete caisson, boxes, a shoebox of concrete. We fill them with styrofoam. So with [these] you get unthinkable floating foundations [...]

The house itself is the same as a normal house, the same material. Then you want to figure out how to get water and electricity and remove sewage and use the same technology as cruise ships."

- Koen Olthuis — The Atlantic Cities

Atlanta and Rio are but two chapters in the long history of displacement that has accompanied mega-events like the Olympics. Similar dynamics reshaped London’s Clays Lane Estate, Beijing’s hutongs, the Marousi Roma settlement in Athens, Barcelona’s Poblenou and Seoul’s hanoks. . . . Today the people of Vila Autódromo are struggling for what housing scholar-activist Chester Hartman has aptly called “the right to stay put.” — Places Journal