Built for the London 2012 Olympic Games, hailed as one of the most sustainable Olympic Games ever, the Olympic Stadium is the pinnacle of sustainable construction. The construction process utilised many new construction techniques and procurement strategies, allowing the designers and contractors to use less construction material and save money. In order to measure the sustainability of the stadium the Olympic delivery authority (ODA) created a tailored version of BREEAM(Olympic Delivery Authority 2011). But how much more sustainable is the Olympic Stadium than other recently built stadiums?
The Olympic stadium was designed by Buro Happold and constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine (Mark Hansford 2011). Construction began in May 2008 and was completed just under 3 years later in April 2011. The Olympic Stadium lies to the south of Olympic park, the massive regenerated area upon which most 2012 Olympic venues have been built. During the Olympic Games the stadium will have a capacity of 80,000, but in post-games life this will be reduced to 25,000 with the removal of the temporary upper tier (Olympic Delivery Authority n.d.).
Before construction of the stadium began the ODA were already actively encouraging the project to be as sustainable as possible. This began with a new version of BREEAM being established, and “was the first time assessments were created for major sports stadia”(Olympic Delivery Authority 2011). The BREEAM of assessing environmental impact was chosen primarily as it is independently managed, and can therefore be externally audited, giving the final rating greater weight. The BREAAM is also a “tried and tested” approach, it is in use across the world with over 200,000 buildings certified and over 1 million register...
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Mark Hansford, 2010. atkins-2012.pdf. New Civil Engineer, Major Project Report(Greening The Games). Available at: http://www.atkinsglobal.com/~/media/Files/A/Atkins-Global/Attachments/corporate/twenty-twelve/atkins-2012.pdf [Accessed March 24, 2012].
Mark Hansford, 2011. Stunning And Sustainable Stadium. UK Games: A Year To GO, pp.10–12.
Olympic Delivery Authority, 2011. 425009-143-breeam-aw.pdf. Available at: http://learninglegacy.london2012.com/documents/pdfs/sustainability/425009-143-breeam-aw.pdf [Accessed March 20, 2012].
Olympic Delivery Authority, Olympic Stadium | Venues | London 2012. Olympic Stadium. Available at: http://www.london2012.com/olympic-stadium [Accessed March 20, 2012].
Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games, benchmarks.pdf. Available at: http://www.csp.uts.edu.au/resources/benchmarks.pdf [Accessed March 24, 2012].
The precursor to this cost was a decade of skyrocketing salaries and the trend to build huge public ally financed megaplexis to house these professional athletes. The current response to this ostentatious decade is to put forth bills to prevent and/or set limits on public financed projects (Shafroth, 1996). The history of stadiums shows that it was always the norm of publicly building stadiums, however, with the cost of these projects astronomical the public is more skeptical (Rosentraub, 1991). The reason why state and local governments continue to want to finance these stadiums has been much debated. The main debate is one of economic impact. The following two excerpts illustrate this debate:
This Environmental Impact Statement and its enclosed project alternatives can be reviewed for project approval as well as any additional scoping that may be necessary. The preferred build alternative should be selected because of the low environmental impact and beneficial economic benefits compared to the other build and no-build alternatives.
There is a nationwide trend in which taxpayers are asked to pay for new stadiums these stadiums benefit a single corporation. A sport construction boom has started, these new stadiums cost a minimum of $200 million to build, but usually cost much more. New stadiums have been built, or are underway, in New York, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Seattle, Tampa, Washington DC, St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Oakland. This competitive trend replaces old stadiums with high tech flashy stadiums used exclusively for one sport. These stadiums are unnecessary, and not cost efficient. Most of the time new stadiums are not used for multi-purposes, they bring in money exclusively for the professional league and not ...
People always say when you are going to witness a concert or a match in Wembley Stadium, then the walk that you have to take from the bridge to the stadium seeing the lovely view is God’s gift to the people of England. You can see the reaction on the television of the supporters inside the stadium which makes people want to go there and relive the atmosphere. It falls in 21st position on the all time biggest stadiums by capacity and is also the 2nd largest stadium in Europe behind the Camp Nou, which is owned by Barcelona.
It was estimated that the Olympic Games 2012 would involve more than 11,000 athletes and officials, 1 million visitors from around the world, and 4 billion television audiences, or more. Therefore, it was important to ensure that the Games preparations were ready on time, delivered high standard sports facilities to the sports professionals while controlled spending within budget.
From 2001 2002 there was a 23% increase in the construction of sports stadiums and arenas with costs of those facilities upwards of $7.8 billion. The growing global sport industry requires that sport facility and event management keep current of new and proven management techniques. Sport Facility Management: Organizing Events and Mitigating Risks by Ammon, Jr., Southall, and Blair, provides readers with a basic introduction to elements of facility management for the full range of sporting and entertainment events. There is a high demand for individuals who are educated and trained in facility management, event organization, and risk management and since the September 11 attacks there has been a great emphasis placed on facility and risk management. Each chapter provides theoretical foundations and practical applications for each critical phase of facility management. The authors provided photographs, case studies, and industry examples to assist the reader in gaining an overall basic, picture of the sporting event and entertainment industry today. The book provides in-depth discussions about positive advances that have made the entire experience easier and more comfortable for fans; and about the negative economic and cultural consequences for sport events after September 11 2001.
The phenomenon was mainly caused by a dramatic investment increase or excessive social and psychological expected at the pre-Olympic stage. Normally, it will lead to a waste of infrastructure, facilities idle, the Olympic host city real estate prices fell, and the stock market fell, in part or in overall economic growth slow down after the Olympic Games. According Josh Sanbum’s report “For years, studies have shown that holding the Olympics often has severe negative economic effects on host cities, despite the temporary burst of tourism and global attention. The competition between cities often causes governments to go financially overboard merely to win an Olympic bid. Once construction gets under way, governments often fail to budget properly. And after the Games are over, many cities are left with infrastructure that suddenly has no real use.” (2012).That shows the Olympic Games often has serious negative economic effects on host
In conclusion, the designers and builders of the tower have an undesirable job: creating a building that is functional, modern, sustainable and unique. At the same time it is honoring the memory of the people that died in and around the buildings that stood there before. While the green sustainable features have been criticized for being too expensive, they will do more than save just water, electricity and emissions. They and the grace of the building will inspire a generation of green and safe skyscrapers for the twenty-first century. This building has become one of the safest, environmentally friendly and expensive ever built, but as critics slate the building for various reasons, one cannot take away the determination through political, social and economic status that designers and workers have created such a beautiful building with great meaning.
One may disagree that hosting Olympics is not worthwhile as it requires a city or a country to bring out an enormous sum of money for the preparation and planning of hosting the Olympics. Zimbalist (2012, pp. 116) says that the summer Games roughly generates a total of $5-$6 billion and almost half of it belongs to the International Olympic Committee. On the other hand, the cost of the games has increased roughly
Many people would question if the cost of the Olympics is worth it. Billions of dollars are used to make the Olympics what it is, and a lot of money is spent on manufacturing medals, and building arenas for the sports events. The arenas also require lots of money to maintain during the Olympics, as well as afterwards if they are to be recycled as sporting event centres. Housing for the athletes also takes quite a few million to create, even though they are only used for athlete housing for a couple of weeks. So much money was put into things like accommodation, but there were many complaints from everyone residing there that most parts of the building were incomplete or malfunctioning. The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi’s original budget was twelv...
The EIA Directive aims to be integrative of all interested actors and to make a wide range of projects sustainable, in order to protect the environment, enhance the quality of life and reduce any friction between planners, developers and local communities [European Union (EU), 2009]. It is a process constituted by different stages from screening to evaluating and monitoring the impacts of the project implemented (Wood, 2003).
In every major sports event, like the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, there’s always a huge celebration and a positive vibes surrounding such events. Hosting these events are usually a great honor to the selected countries and bring a lot of favorable consequences with it. However, no one realized that whenever these big sporting events occur and are hosted, brings as much negative consequences which counterbalances all the good things that comes with it. So, the question remains, is the Olympics a Cash Cow or a Money Pit to the hosting countries? In my opinion, the Olympics could actually bring more benefit that loss to the selected countries to host it, which are to bring positive economic and cultural benefits, either a Legacy or a Money pit for the hosting countries, hosting this event could promote development for the educational legacy and finally eradicating poverty throughout the citizens.
In a world where over half of the human population calls a city their home, the need to restructure and revolutionize the way we design our urban environments has never been greater. Currently, the notion that these vast metropolises of metal, concrete, and sludge could one day be fully realized pillars of sustainability is certainly laughable. However, when these same cities are constantly growing and multiplying across the globe, all the while using a greater and greater chunk of our planet’s energy, this impossible task becomes a necessary focus. To strive towards the closed, continuous loop of “true” sustainability could greatly alter the image of the modern city. Any improvement over the current state of urban affairs could carry weight, and even if that goal is not entirely fulfilled, the gained benefits would be immense.
A green building (also referred to as sustainable building or green construction) is a structure that employs an approach that is responsible for the environment besides being efficient in regard to resources all through its life cycle: This is from selecting the site to designing it, constructing, operating, maintaining, renovating and demolishing it. To achieve this, the client, the engineers, the architects and the entire design team closely cooperate at all stages of a project (Yan and Paliniotis, 2006). Practicing Green Building complements and expands the conventional building design areas of comfort, durability, utility and economy.
The use of green materials is better for the environment because they have a positive impact on the planet. Looking at our environment today we see a place that has been facing a massive climate change. Scientists have been concerned over global warming for decades. The ongoing increase of the earth’s temperature is believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect (“Global Warming” 27). Building with green materials produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emission. Specifically, wood as a material for building products, requires considerably less energy than other building products such as steel and concrete. Wood product manufacture results in fewer greenhouse gas and other air-polluting emissions (“Green Building Benefits”). Green building also results in waste reduction. In the United States, construction and demolition creates a huge amount of solid waste. Green building limits the waste prod...