Andrew Smith

Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012

Andrew Smith University of Westminster, UK

This paper critically analyses the recent tendency for Olympic hosts to stage events in temporary ven- ues. This fits into a wider trend in which ‘pop-up’ facilities and temporary uses are increasingly pro- posed as urban solutions, particularly in times of economic crisis. Although there is a long tradition of using temporary stadia to stage events, this practice has become more obvious and more strategic in recent editions of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This paper analyses the advantages and dis- advantages of temporary arenas by focusing on the case of London 2012. Organizers constructed a series of temporary structures to stage events such as basketball, hockey, equestrian and shooting. The London case is also interesting because venues like the Aquatics Centre (that had permanent and temporary elements) blur the distinction between temporary and permanent venues. The paper high- lights the key benefits of temporary arenas: their relative efficiency and the way they provide opportu- nities to concentrate events and use more central and ‘iconic’ city locations. However, the paper also identifies several key problems. The complexity and costs of building these venues means they do not necessarily offer simple or cost effective solutions to the venue dilemmas faced by contemporary host cities. Furthermore, the controversies associated with constructing venues in public spaces needs to be acknowledged as a significant disadvantage that offsets any city marketing benefits. ❖

Introduction

Hosting the summer Olympic Games is an onerous undertaking for any city. The disparity between the normal sports facilities required by a large city and the venues required to stage the Games has grown.1 Various ways of addressing this problem have been suggested, but one obvious option is to use temporary facilities. In 1911, Pierre de Coubertin bemoaned the ‘unnecessary’ use of permanent buildings for the Games, which were adding to the costs for hosts. In a prescient but unheeded warn- ing, he argued that “temporary structures would suffice.”2 As host cities now struggle to sustain new facilities post-event, they are turning once again to temporary venues. The aim of this paper is to crit- ically analyze the use of temporary venues by host cites. The case of London 2012 is employed as a lens through which to understand the advantages and disadvantages of this hosting strategy. Links are

101 Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012 102 made between temporary venues and recent literature on temporary urbanism, and a case is made for reconceiving Olympic events as temporary uses of urban spaces.

Temporary Venues: Context and Drivers The increased use of temporary venues is partly a response to difficulties finding financially sustain- able uses for permanent facilities built for the Games. Olympic host cities have become more aware of the dangers of building white elephants,3 which are superfluous structures that are expensive to build and maintain. One way of addressing this problem is to designate an end user/use as early as possible in the lifetime of any new venues built for the Games.4 However, this is a complex process, with transfer of ownership and design specifications notoriously difficult to negotiate. This problem highlights the need for careful temporal planning of a venue; including how design and responsibility will evolve. Adopting this approach means thinking beyond ‘end users’ of facilities, and instead thinking in terms of ‘users over time.’5 The governance of events also poses temporal complexities. New venues are often commissioned and delivered by event agencies; but these organizations have a limited life, meaning they have little or no stake in the long-term success of new permanent Olympic facilities. Temporary arenas can be built and dismantled during the lifetime of lead agencies, some- thing that resolves issues about ownership and management. The prominence of legacy planning within Olympic bids and hosting strategies is also linked to the increased use of temporary venues. On closer analysis, strategies to use more of these venues both support and contradict this new organizing paradigm. Whilst some feel temporary venues help to avoid problems in the post-event period (notably financial liabilities), they sit awkwardly with the perceived need to provide benevolent legacies. And, although temporary venues are usually seen as more sustainable, they can be also equated with a wasteful, throw-away philosophy - something evi- denced by the criticism of Atlanta’s ‘Disposable Games.’6 There are other reasons why temporary structures are increasingly prominent within Olympic bids/hosting strategies. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has encouraged more spatially concentrated Games meaning there is less potential to use new or existing facilities outside host cit- ies. Other incentives for using temporary structures include optimizing city marketing and city brand- ing outcomes. Temporary stands can be positioned in places were permanent facilities would not be possible; including city centers, heritage sites and at points boasting impressive vistas. Staging Olym- pic events in these spectacular urban settings has short and long-term benefits; providing memorable experiences for spectators and athletes, but also generating media images that may improve a city’s competitive position in an increasingly symbolic economy. However, there are potential problems too. The boosterist rhetoric associated with mega-events can help garner support for venues in places that in normal circumstances would be deemed unacceptable. Even though these structures are tem- porary they can result in permanent changes to the urban landscape and can provide precedents for inappropriate future development.7

Temporary uses The increased use of temporary venues for the Games can also be linked to the recent acknowledge- ment of the value of temporary uses for cities. Architects, planners, and other creative professionals have championed ‘pop-up’ facilities and temporary uses of urban spaces as ways to encourage inno- vation, activity and efficiency. Temporary urbanism comes in various guides: for example ‘interim’, ‘makeshift’ or ‘meanwhile’ uses for spaces where envisaged development has stalled, trialing of potential longer term uses, even uses by counter-cultural groups who appropriate private spaces for Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012 103 public use. There are various drivers of this trend, most obviously the recent economic crisis which increased the amount of stalled development and vacant urban space, but also new technology and new spatial configurations in a ‘liquid’ form of modernity.8 A simpler explanation is that people like temporary structures. In their book entitled The Temporary City, Bishop and Williams9 suggest there is evidence of “a cachet associated with time-limited exclusivity that has consumer appeal.”10 Although the literature on Olympic cities has mushroomed in recent years, very few texts utilize the conceptual framework of temporary urbanism. This paper argues that it is possible to understand temporary Olympic venues using the ideas and literature cited above - i.e. as potentially valuable temporary uses of space - rather than merely as exercises in cost-saving.

Lessons from London 2012

London’s Olympic Games were staged in multiple venues across the city and - in the cases of rowing, canoeing, mountain biking, sailing and football - in other parts of the UK. Some venues were purpose built for long term use (i.e. handball, track, and cycling) and a number of existing venues were used (i.e. Wembley, Lord’s, Wimbledon, Excel, the O2 Arena, and Earls Court). However, a large number of temporary venues were also constructed. Indeed, London provided a larger number of temporary seats and devoted more physical space to temporary venues than any previous Olympic city.11 Orga- nizers claim that “London 2012 temporary venues and infrastructure was equivalent to the last three summer Games combined.”12 This paper divides London’s temporary venues into two categories: 1 temporary venues built on development platforms within the Olympic Park (water polo, basket- ball and hockey) 2 temporary venues constructed in prominent open spaces (shooting, equestrian, beach volleyball, triathlon, long distance swimming) There is insufficient space here to review all these venues, so in the analysis below, one example from each of these categories is explored further to help illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of temporary structures.

Temporary venues on development platforms Several London 2012 temporary venues were built on remediated sites that were scheduled for com- mercial or residential property development post-Games. The Basketball Arena was the most interest- ing of these venues. The project was managed by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which took responsibility for ‘challenging’ temporary venues.13 We normally think of temporary venues as those rapidly assembled in the immediate build-up to an event; but construction of this Arena began in 2009 - three years before the Games. The main challenge for the ODA was to deliver a very large structure (12,000 seats) that was not only temporary, but also re-locatable. The development of mobile venues is an emerging trend within mega-events, with several host/candidate cities now promising to move venues to alternative locations after an event has finished.14 The challenging sus- tainability criteria established for all 2012 venues also posed problems. Existing sustainable design guidance was only available for structures with a 60 year life span. Consequently, post-2012 the ‘Temporary Venues and Overlay Sustainable Design Requirements’ developed and applied by Lon- don’s Organizing Committee (LOCOG) now represent a significant legacy in their own right.15 Cost was one of the more surprising disadvantages of London 2012 temporary venues. London’s Basketball Arena cost £40 million to build, which seems expensive for a structure that was only used Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012 104 for a limited period of time. The venue cost almost exactly the same as the Copper Box Arena (hand- ball): even though the latter was built as a permanent sports facility. However, to make a valid com- parison, future revenues from the sale of housing on land that the Basketball Arena once occupied need to be considered,16 as this use wouldn’t have been possible had the structure had been retained. The one-off investment in the Basketball Arena also needs to be placed in the context of the long- term costs and benefits of running the Copper Box Arena as a community-oriented venue. In light of the earlier discussion about temporary governance and temporary structures, the deliv- ery model for the Basketball Arena deserves further consideration. Ownership of the Arena was retained by the construction company who built it (Barr Construction), with the ODA effectively hir- ing the Arena for the Games. This neat approach meant that once the construction of the Olympic Park was finished, and the ODA dissolved, there were no outstanding responsibilities for the disposal of the Arena. The structure was built on a development platform: a site earmarked and prepared for development. Therefore, London’s Basketball Arena provides a good example of an Olympic struc- ture serving an interim use in the manner highlighted in the literature on temporary urbanism. How- ever, whilst the legacy for the site is secured, the legacy for the structure is still uncertain. Despite efforts to persuade Rio de Janeiro (host of the 2016 Olympic Games) or another host city to buy it, this temporary venue is currently for sale (price: £2.5 million).17

Temporary venues in prominent open spaces Several London 2012 events were staged in prominent open spaces, mainly to ensure that the Games provided spectacular media images of the host city. Spaces used included the Royal Parks (most notably Greenwich Park and Hyde Park) and Horse Guards Parade (normally used as the loca- tion for military parades and various regal events). Greenwich Park’s equestrian arena was the largest and most controversial of these projects. The location was crucial to the rationale for staging events here - the venue was positioned in the shadow of the National Maritime Museum, and offered views across London.18 A 23,000 seat arena was constructed in the Park despite vocal opposition from local people who bemoaned access restrictions and the likelihood of environmental damage.19 Interest- ingly, campaigning by opponents of the Greenwich venue emphasized the temporal disparity between the fleeting event/temporary structure and the long history of the Park/the permanence of environmental damage.20 Fears were also expressed that the temporary use of the Park as a venue would change the way it would be used in the future. The main opposition group (No to Greenwich Olympic Events) felt that “a dangerous precedent has been set for future commercial exploitation.”21 This illustrates the potential long-term significance of temporary uses. The choice of venue was also initially opposed by some within the equestrian community who felt that using a temporary venue would not leave any tangible physical legacy for their sport.22 This highlights one of the problems justifying temporary structures in an era when every stakeholder wants their legacy priorities to be privileged. Permanent environmental damage to the Park was avoided, but building a massive temporary structure in a public park led to cost overruns and construction problems. Erecting an arena on sloping grassland, whilst trying to minimize damage to the Park, posed major challenges. It also meant considerable spending post-event to return the Park to its for- mer state. Unlike the Basketball Arena, the venue was delivered by LOCOG. This organization was not required to publish such accounts, so we don’t know how much it actually spent on the venue, but a project that was initially estimated to cost about £6 million, is rumored to have cost between £60-120 million23. Again, this highlights how expensive large temporary arenas can be. However, if Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012 105 the priority was to promote future visits to Greenwich and London, the capital’s 2013 tourism figures suggest this was achieved.24

Beyond the temporal / permanent dichotomy Arguably, there was a third type of temporary venue used at London 2012: those intended to be per- manent albeit with temporary elements in their design. For the two most expensive venues (Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre), temporary structures were added to a permanent base with the intention of downscaling the venue in ‘legacy’ mode. The Aquatics Centre and Stadium highlight the difficulty in defining what we actually mean by a temporary venue. This was also highlighted by the other venues analyzed above. The professionals who delivered the basketball and equestrian venues considered them to be equivalent to permanent buildings in many ways: “the temporary arenas were delivered as bespoke solutions with, in many respects, the same performance specification as for a permanent building.”25 What is envisaged as temporary may actually have much in common with the permanent.26 Mobile temporary structures like London’s Basketball Arena are designed to be used over an extended period of time: with the firm who built it promising “it can be easily reconstructed to offer excellent service for many, many years to come.”27 Whilst these examples suggest the tempo- rary has many characteristics of the permanent, permanent arenas seem increasingly temporary as many are changed radically or demolished soon after their construction.28 In short, it is increasingly hard to distinguish between temporary and permanent venues.

Conclusions This paper highlights the rationale for, and key benefits of, temporary Olympic arenas. These venues provide opportunities to concentrate events and to use more central and ‘iconic’ city locations. More obviously they provide efficient ways of avoiding the development of superfluous venues that are expensive to maintain and complicated to manage post-event. However, the paper also identified several key problems with temporary venues. The complexities and costs associated with building them means they do not necessarily offer simple or cheap solutions to the venue dilemmas faced by contemporary host cities. It is increasingly hard to distinguish between temporary and permanent buildings, but a useful typology of temporary venues was developed in the preceding discussion. Of these types, there seem to be more potential benefits from venues conceived as temporary uses within wider urban develop- ment programs. This represents a very different proposition than constructing temporary arenas in valuable open spaces. In these instances there are practical and ethical problems that can undermine any experiential and place marketing benefits. Rather than risking negative legacies for prestigious public spaces, it seems more justifiable to use temporary structures as ‘interim uses of brownfield sites.’29 This logic may work on a wider level too - not just for the design and delivery of individual venues, but for the overall design of concentrated Olympic sites. Rather than trying to seek post-event uses and users for sites dominated by major sports venues, it seems possible to conceive the Games as interim uses within large-scale urban regeneration projects. Sites can be remediated, events staged using temporary facilities, with sites subsequently developed as conventional ‘pieces’ in the urban jigsaw or as open space (rather than as Olympic Parks). This may not please stakeholders who want permanent sports facilities and sports participation legacies, but it represents an unusually coherent way of integrating the Olympic Games and urban regeneration. Using Temporary Venues to Stage the Games: Lessons from London 2012 106

Endnotes 1 Despite efforts at the beginning of the 21st century to restrict its size, the Games are arguably bigger than ever - see Jean- Loup Chappelet, “Managing the Size of the Olympic Games,” Sport in Society 17, no. 5 (2014): 581-592. 2 Cited in Chappelet, “Managing the Size of the Olympic Games,” 590-591. 3 For a full account of the meaning and origins of this term, see Andrew Smith, Events and Urban Regeneration (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012). 4 Smith, Events and Urban Regeneration, 76. 5 Fran Tonkiss, “Austerity Urbanism and the Makeshift City,” City 17, no. 3 (2012): 312-324. 6 Charles Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta (New York: Verso, 1996). 7 Phil McManus, “Writing the Palimpsest, Again; Rozelle Bay and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games,” Urban Policy and Research 22, no. 2 (2004): 157-167. 8 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). 9 Peter Bishop and Lesley Williams, The Temporary City (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 3. 10 Something that helps to explain why major brands are keen to establish pop-up stores. 11 This commitment to use a large number of temporary venues was made at the bid stage, even though plans inevitably shifted slightly 2004-2012. 12 Amanda Aukett, Delivering Sustainability for Games Venues and Infrastructure. Learning Legacy Report (London: ODA, 2012), 2, accessed July 29, 2014, http://learninglegacy.independent.gov.uk. 13 A. Nimmo, S. Wright and D. Coulson, “Delivering London 2012: Temporary Venues,” Civil Engineering 164 (2011): 59-64. 14 Most notably, Qatar’s proposals for the 2022 FIFA World Cup involved plans to relocate modular stadia to other devel- oping countries. See Nadine Scharfenort, “Urban Development and Social Change in Qatar: the Qatar National Vision 2030 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” Journal of Arabian Studies 2, no. 2 (2012): 209-230). 15 Aukett, Delivering Sustainability for Games Venues and Infrastructure, 6. 16 Construction of housing on this site, part of the proposed Chobham Manor neighborhood, began in 2014. 17 For the main structure (i.e. excluding the seats!). 18 In a manner reminiscent of Barcelona’s Olympic diving pools for the 1992 Games. 19 Andrew Smith, “Borrowing Public Space to Stage Major Events. The Greenwich Park Controversy,” Urban Studies 51, no. 2 (2014): 247–263. 20 Smith, “Borrowing Public Space to Stage Major Events,” 253. 21 NOGOE, NOGOE and its Purpose (2012), accessed July 29, 2014, http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/ 23167095/collection/4325386/source/collection. 22 Smith, “Borrowing Public Space to Stage Major Events,” 254. 23 Gordon Rayner, “Greenwich Park ruined by 2012 events, campaigners claim.” Daily Telegraph, July 26, 2012, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/london-2012/9760773/Greenwich-Park-ruined-by- London-2012-equestrian-events-campaigners-claim.html; Stephen Moss, “London 2012: Contrasting views from eques- trian £60m picture postcard,” The Observer, July 28, 2012, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/ sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/jul/28/london-2012-equestrian-olympics-greenwich. 24 In 2013, 16.8 million overseas visitors visited London - an increase of 9% compared to 2012 and the National Maritime Museum attracted 27% more visitors in 2013 than the previous year. See Office for National Statistics, “Travel and Tras- port,” May 8, 2014, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ott/travel-trends/2013/sty.html and AL- VA: Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, “Visitor Figures,” (2013), accessed September 19, 2014, http:// www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423. 25 Nimmo et al., “Delivering London 2012: Temporary Venues,” 64. 26 Many temporary buildings are retained longer than originally envisaged, most famously London’s 1908 Olympic Stadi- um. See John Gold and Margaret Gold, “Future indefinite? London 2012, the Spectre of Retrenchment and the Challenge of Olympic Sports Legacy,” The London Journal 34, no. 2 (2009): 179-196. 27 As explained by the Managing Director of Barr Construction, see “London 2012 Olympic Basketball Arena Hits Market,” BTWShiells Press Release, February 15, 2013, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.btwshiells.com/commercial- news/specific/london-2012-olympic-basketball-arena-hits-the-market. 28 The demolition of Sheffield’s World Student Games Stadium in 2013 - twenty two years after it opened - provides a useful reminder that all sport event venues have a limited life. 29 A ‘brownfield’ site is site for new development that has previously hosted urban development, in contrast to a ‘green- field’ site where development has not previously taken place.