Design for reuse : post occupancy of Olympic stadiums
Author(s)
Lin, George X. (George Xinxin)
DownloadFull printable version (63.90Mb)
Alternative title
Post occupancy of Olympic stadiums
Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture.
Advisor
Ana Miljacki.
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
On the surface, the spirit of Olympic Games is about the competition for medals. Underneath the surface, however, lies a series of political, economical, social agendas. Individual Olympians represent their Nations. Rising modernity, stabilization of economy and social cohesion of nations are represented by the contemporary Architecture of the games. Every Olympic game has resulted in a significant change in the host city and presented the host country with a unique opportunity to shed a new light on itself in front of a global audience. In anticipation of presenting a brilliant, dynamic image to the world, Olympic cities often build contemporary sporting arenas that follow similar design patterns of generating iconic and autonomous buildings with relatively fixed programs. In order for a city to accommodate such a large number of newly constructed sporting venues, a trend has emerged whereby cities shift the games from the urban core to outlying peripheries, scattered throughout the suburbs. After the 17 days of international use, the venues return to serve the host city's needs. But the stadiums are largely freestanding objects that compete with pre-existing residential fields for the occupancy of local teams. These local teams often favor smaller arenas that are less maintenance-intensive and are more widely accessible due to their greater proximity to the city core. As a result, Olympic stadiums become underused, labeled as white elephants and even in some instances abandoned. The next Olympics will be held in Rio, which has the 5th largest economy in the world while also having one of the world's lowest GDP per capita. This thesis explores the possibility of exploiting the flamboyant nature of the Olympics to create a dual purpose field hockey stadium, the design of which is flexible enough to adapt to a post Olympics transformation into a vocational school.
Description
Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2013. This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125).
Date issued
2013Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of ArchitecturePublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Architecture.