LONDON 2012 A DECADE IN THE MAKING PRESS PACK BID MASTERPlan VENUES BRAND OVERlaY LegacY actiVation LONDON 2012 A DECADE IN THE MAKING PRESS PACK BID Populous has been involved in 10 Olympic Games and were the bid architects for 3 consecutive host city awards for the cities of London 2012, Glasgow 2014 and Sochi 2014. Our unique experience allows us to identify and optimise the use of the city and surrounding areas to create compelling and compact venue distribution plans for potential host cities. With our in-depth analysis, we work alongside bidding cities to provide a comprehensive proposal to organise the Games that will appeal to the IOC and other major competition committees. Since 2003's initial site exploration, Populous assisted the London 2012 bid team with in house architects who created the bid winning London wide sports masterplan. MASTERPLAN Our process of masterplanning begins with a long term legacy strategy as the starting point for creating vibrant and sustainable places within cities. We use sporting and entertainment venues as urban catalysts and develop the relationship between social infrastructure elements, and enhance them to add value and character to the urban realm. For the London 2012 Olympic Park our design approach was imbedded in our masterplanning, ensuring that the personal experiences of all Games time and legacy user groups were considered from their respective mode of transport to their seat within the venue. VENUES With more than a 1,000 projects completed globally, we open locations to the world – creating iconic venues that become a financial success. Our portfolio includes the design of 3 Olympic stadiums - Sydney 2000, Sochi 2014 and the London 2012 Olympic Stadium, which has already become the centre piece of the park and a catalyst for the urban regeneration of East London. The number of venues that Populous has previously designed and that will be used during the London Olympic Games, such as the Copper box, Wimbledon, Wembley, North Greenwich Arena and the Millennium stadium, amongst others, embraces the sustainable concept of a Green Games presented in the venue plan development submitted to the IOC. MORE > www.populous.com OVERLAY The scale and complexity of an Olympic and Paralympic Games is huge: 35 competition venues, over 150 non-competition venues, 30 client groups and 28 million ticketed spectators. As Team Populous (Populous, Allies and Morrison and Lifschutz Davidson and Sandilands) we have designed each and every venue, to ensure that the venue design fits in and exploits its natural surroundings and is sympathetic to the heritage of the setting. We always take a design-inclusive approach to temporary structures and major events, maximisng user experience to create memorable places and spaces. Our philosophy of ‘embracing the temporary’ has allowed us the freedom to showcase London, using it as a backdrop to create defining moments – beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade, the silhouette of a horse jumping in Greenwich Park – these will stand as a symbol of the Games for decades to come. BRAND ACTIVATION Populous Activate is a brand activation and experience design agency. With our unique understanding of sports and entertainment, our wayfinding strategies have created a set of principles to ensure clarity of communication, inclusivity and good design. The signage is integrated in each of the venues (Copper Box, London Olympic Stadium, Basketball Arena and Water polo) and by considering spectators from the start, embracing the cultural values and making them an integral part of the plan, we are able to ensure that every venue, whether temporary or permanent, offers an enhanced experience to every user and leaves a lasting memory. LEGACY Bringing the Olympic and Paralympic Games to London was driven from the outset by the opportunity for a unique legacy that could be delivered for the city. The Games have been a catalyst for urban regeneration in East London, fast tracking 25-30 years of planned work into just a decade, creating the largest new park in the city for over 100 years. The Queen Elizabeth Park is a vibrant piece of connecting tissue which will unify the four London host boroughs around the River Lea, creating a new residential district, enhanced rail connectivity, and significant job creation for the local population. At its heart will lie the Olympic stadium, delivering an enduring athletics legacy and a multi functionality that will allow it to play host to a wide range of sporting and entertainment events in the future. www.populous.com london 2012 OLYMPIC STADIUM BY THE NUMBERS 80,000 capacity 56 vomitories 56 different colours of glass balustrades 80 metre warm-up track 4,610 square metres allocated to toilets 360 rolls of turf 20,000 square metres of field of play 700 rooms and spaces within the Stadium, including changing rooms and toilets 5,250 people have worked on the project 45 Populous architects worked on the project 240 UK businesses have won contracts for the construction BOWL 8,000 precast units in the bowl 9,250 cubic metres of precast concrete in bowl 154 loudspeakers in the seating bowl, suspended in 56 cluster locations 218 kilowatts of amplification driving a total of 1,250 loudspeakers throughout the entire stadium ROOF 6,000 metres of cable in the roof 28 main roof column bases 260 metres width of main roof compression truss structure 310 metres length of main roof compression truss structure 25,500 square metres of fabric roof 112 steel rakers LIGHTS 532 lights 14 sportlights towers 44 lights per tower 35 tonnes, each tower weights 1 megawatt – total power INTERESTING FACTS 50 kilometres of seats lined side by side 34 unladen double decker London buses – the weight the roof can support 800,000 tonnes of soil was taken away before construction could begin – enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall nine times over 62.7 metres is the stadium height that is half the size of the London Eye and equivalent to the central span of Tower Bridge 1,000,000 people will visit the Olympic Stadium www.populous.com london 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES BY THE NUMBERS EVENTS 3 times London has hosted the modern Oylmpic games 54 nations will participate in the Games 47 Gold Medal Events in the Olympic Games 166 Gold Medal Events in the Paralympic Games 27 July 2012 Opening Ceremony, Olympic Games 12 August 2012 Closing Ceremony, Olympic Games 29 August 2012 Opening Ceremony, Paralympic Games 9 September 2012 Closing Ceremony, Paralympic Games 10,500 competing athletes 30,000 media and broadcasters that will cover the Games 7,500 team officials 3,000 technical officials 205 countries represented this summer 26 sports that will be contested 39 disciplines PARK 357 football pitches that could fit into the park 500,000 plants in the park’s wetlands areas 1,300,000 tonnes of soil that has been washed to get rid of contamination EQUIPMENT 2,700 footballs 26,400 tennis balls 8 trampolines 65,000 towels 510 adjustable hurdles for athletics 600 basketballs 541 life jackets for canoeing, marathon swimming, rowing, sailing and the triathlon 53 sets of lane ropes for swimming 6,000 archery target faces 22 tape measures 356 pairs of boxing gloves PEOPLE 15,000 volunteers will be on hand for the opening and closing ceremonies 8,000 people will carry the flame www.populous.com VENUES LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC STADIUM THE VENUE KEY FACTS London will be the first city to host the Olympic Summer Games for a third time, and the LOCATION organ ising committee intends to showcase the city’s capability in hosting spectacular, efficient Olympic Park and innovative Olympic and Paralympics Games. Embedded in the London Games design CLIENT parameters is the need to provide for the future, the Legacy of a major event, which requires The Olympic Delivery Authority transformation of the city and the venues – challenging the concept of building permanence. ARCHITECT Populous To achieve a balance between the immediate needs of the large Games stadium against a long Capacity term, small scale venue, Populous have embraced the opportunity to develop the architectural 80,000 Olympic language of venue design. We have progressed a new theory of ‘embracing the temporary’, 25,000 Legacy by exploring form, materials, structure and operational systems to bring a structured palette of EVENTS elements into a cohesive design. Simple legible forms develop, minimizing the physical weight, Athletics fabrication time and embodied energy of each component – bringing together a compact Opening and Closing Ceremonies structure formed by demountable connections. This not only enables the overlay of theatre and spectacle in staging the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 80,000 capacity venue, but also promotes possibilities of transformation after the Games down to a minimum 25,000 seat venue form. The London Olympic Stadium is sited on a diamond-shaped island between two existing water- ways, located within the southern section of the new Olympic Park. The seating bowl is compact, bringing all 80, 000 spectators far closer to the event than previous Games venues. The design makes full use of the site’s island situation, providing a complete circuit of spectator podium concourse around the stadium, connected by bridges to the main park. This podium concourse promotes the carnival nature of the event with a perimeter array of spectator facilities, particu- larly retail and food service, distributed along the natural boundary of the water’s edge. During the three hours of an athletics event, spectators are free to move from their seat out onto the podium to visit these colourful clusters of concession pods, and view across the waterways the activities in the adjacent park and venues. The key sustainability criteria of reduce, reuse and recycle were adopted to create a compact, flexible and lightweight design.