London unveils 2012 stadium plan
BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/othe...12/7081346.stm
London 2012 officials have revealed the much-anticipated design for their new £496m Olympic Stadium.
http://www.london2012.com/blog/2007/...ium-design.php
"No-one can say we've compromised on design, comprised on sustainability or comprised on the legacy potential," said Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has already revealed work on the 80,000-seater stadium will begin three months ahead of schedule in April 2008.
It was initially expected to cost £280m but the costs have since been revised.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 November 2007, 12:11 GMT
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
London unveils 2012 stadium plan
The stadium will be the showpiece of the Games
Enlarge Image
London 2012 officials have revealed the much-anticipated design for their new £496m Olympic Stadium.
"No-one can say we've compromised on design, comprised on sustainability or comprised on the legacy potential," said Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has already revealed work on the 80,000-seater stadium will begin three months ahead of schedule in April 2008.
It was initially expected to cost £280m but the costs have since been revised.
Animation of how London's 2012 stadium will look
How the site was cleared for the stadium
Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee, told a news conference on Wednesday that the stadium would be a "stadium for a new era".
"It's a stadium that delivers on everything we said we would deliver on; a stadium with track and field as its primary legacy; a stadium that will be reduced from 80,000 seats in Olympic mode to a 25,000-seater community base," he said.
Jowell added: "This is a very important Olympic milestone and this stadium is focused very much on legacy and sustainability.
"Once the Games are over this will then be translated into a stadium that will not only host grand prix athletics events and other national sport events but will also serve the communities of the boroughs."
She also felt the stadium would be a great addition to the capital's sporting facilities.
"This augments and compliments the other great stadia that London now has - Wembley, the Emirates and the new development at Twickenham," she said.
The stadium will be the centrepiece for the 2012 Games and will host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics events.
The main features of the design are:
* a sunken bowl built into the ground for the field of play and lower permanent seating, designed to bring spectators close to the action
* 25,000 permanent seats, 55,000 demountable
* a cable-supported roof that will stretch 28 metres the whole way around the stadium, providing cover for two-thirds of spectators
* a fabric curtain will wrap around the stadium structure, acting as additional protection and shelter for spectators
* facilities such as catering and merchandising will be grouped into self-contained 'pod' structures
Chief architect Rob Sheard, of HoK Sport, said the stadium would make a big impact, but not in the same way that previous Olympic stadia had.
"This is not a stadium that's going to be screaming from the rooftops that it's bigger and more spectacular," he said. "This is just a cleverer building. This is a cleverer solution."
He added that the ability to convert the stadium from an 80,000-seater venue to a 25,000 one once the Olympics and Paralympics had finished was highly innovative and showed great forward thinking.
"We've ended up with a very tight, very compelling bowl," said Sheard. "The atmosphere inside this bowl, we think, will be pretty special."
HOK Sport is a firm of architects with a proven record for designing sporting venues.
It has been responsible for such projects as Wembley Stadium, the Millennium Stadium, the O2 Arena, the Emirates Stadium and Ascot Racecourse.
Building work on the Olympic Stadium, which will stand at the heart of the Olympic Park, will have to be finished at least six months ahead of the opening ceremony in July 2012 to allow for test events to take place.
The stadium build is being led by construction firm Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd in a partnership including architects HoK Sport and consulting engineers Buro Happold.
"It's absolutely non-negotiable that it has to be ready on time," said Radio 5 Live sports news correspondent Gordon Farquhar.
"They've got a large contingency fund if things go wrong but they don't want to spend more than that.
"If it's not ready on time, that is probably the greatest shame the nation has faced in years. But it will be."
After the Games have finished, the temporary seating will be taken away and the stadium will become a 25,000-capacity venue with a permanent athletics track.
An anchor tenant such as a lower-league football or rugby club is actively being sought, but one has yet to be found.
London mayor Ken Livingstone said major football clubs such as West Ham would not be able to become tenants.
He said: "We made a commitment there would be a permanent athletics facility and we have honoured that commitment.
"For West Ham, we have identified a site much better-suited to their needs."
The ODA will be hoping for a positive response from the general public to the Olympic Stadium design following the criticism that the official 2012 logo received in June.
==========================
The design of this stadium is such that it could be used as a template for an Olympics in Africa, in complete contrast to the Beijing stadium.
Tottenham plan stadium expansion
BBC News, Monday, 5 November 2007, 23:32 GMT http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ur/7080067.stm
Tottenham have turned to a man who played a major role in the development of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium to help them build a venue of similar quality.
Tony Winterbottom, formerly of the London Development Authority, is now masterminding plans to expand Spurs' White Hart Lane ground to about 52,000.
The project would cost in the region of £300m of which £150m would be borrowed.
But it would mean Spurs having to vacate White Hart Lane for two seasons, and may have to share with West Ham.
A couple of years ago Tottenham were very keen to become permanent tenants at Wembley but the Football Association did not want that.
Now Tottenham have again approached Wembley to inquire about playing some of their matches there while they rebuild White Hart Lane.
But Wembley want a lot of money to hire the stadium and Tottenham may only consider it worthwhile that top matches, such as the derby with north London rivals Arsenal, are played there.
So they have also spoken to West Ham, with a view to playing the less high-profile matches at Upton Park.
The problem with West Ham is that the Hammers are themselves thinking about building a new stadium, so that might complicate things too.
Another solution might be to share the Emirates Stadium with Arsenal but that seems fraught with difficulty, particularly with the present rivalry between the fans.
Consequently, there is also talk of Tottenham playing some matches at a ground outside London.
But while rebuilding White Hart Lane is the preferred option for Spurs, there are two other alternatives that are being considered.
One is to develop some land just north of White Hart Lane.
This would mean Tottenham would continue to play at White Hart Lane while the new stadium was built.
Or they could develop one of a couple of possible sites in Enfield, but that would mean a new stadium quite some distance from their current ground. Redeveloping White Hart Lane is definitely the number one choice and Paul Phillips, a project manager at Emirates, is also helping Tottenham.
Spurs have also got high-powered architect Ken Shuttleworth, who is the right-hand man of Norman Foster, whose company designed the new Wembley, on board.
====================================
Stadiums in London over 50,000 capacity due in the period of 2008-2018:
Wembley - 90,000
Twickenham - 82,000
Olympic Stadium - 80,000
Emirates Stadium - 60,000
New Boleyn Ground - 60,000
Re-built Stamford Bridge - 60,000
New White Hart Lane - 52,000
To host a world cup, you need 12 stadiums of a seating capacity of over 40,000. London would probably have 7 stadiums by 2018 with a capacity over 50,000 and another 5 x 40,000-50,000 stadiums, including: the proposed expansion of The Valley, a new Craven Cottage (long planned), and temporarily expanded Selhurst Park, Lords Cricket Ground and Oval.
Unfortunately London isn't an independent nation..........yet
Driverless pods to get airport users off to a flying start
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...e.html%3Cbr%3E
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent, Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:16am BST 20/10/2005
They look like something from a science fiction film, but these squat pods will be coming to Heathrow airport very soon.
Not exactly beautiful, but certainly highly functional,
the driverless capsules will take passengers and their luggage from the car park to the terminal lounge.
Heathrow has ordered 18 of the pods for a year-long test on two miles of track
starting in 2008. At first they will be used to link a car park on the perimeter of the airport to Terminal One.
The difference for passengers will be not so much the journey time - which will be about four minutes - but how long they have to wait.
Instead of huddling under a shelter for as long as 20 minutes as they currently do waiting for a bus, the pod will be at most a minute away.
While not blindingly fast, the
battery-powered pods will travel at up to 25 mph on a concrete track, entering the airport via the small service tunnels which run alongside the road tunnel linking Heathrow to the M4 spur. They will be guided by an array of sensors alongside the pathway.
Martin Lowson, the founder of Advanced Transport Systems, could scarcely contain his enthusiasm yesterday over the baby he has been developing for a decade.
"People may arrive at Heathrow in style in their BMWs and Mercedes, but then they have to hoik their luggage out of the boot and clamber on to a bus," he said.
"Hopefully their journey will now be better. The transport will be waiting for you rather than you waiting for the transport."
He added that the one-year trial could merely be a taster of a far more radical scheme, which could be in place by 2012
if all goes well with the Terminal One experiment.
BAA hopes to roll out the network to encompass the other terminals and eventually to airports across the country.
In short, it could change the tired image of Heathrow, giving a facelift to an airport under pressure from competitors on the Continent for the title of Europe's main hub.
Taking in the new terminal five and all car parks, the scheme will need 30 miles of track and up to 500 capsules.
It could, for example, cut from 75 minutes to 10 minutes the time a passenger has to allow for transfer from a flight arriving at Terminal One to another departing from Terminal Four.
The pods are capable of using sophisticated computer technology which would,
for example, take a passenger to the correct terminal once the flight number is tapped in on a console. The computer could also read flight details on a chip embedded in a passenger's frequent flyer card and the rubber-wheeled
capsules could even go direct to the check-in desk.
"Every booking has a name attached to it," said Mr Lowson. "Getting a computer to identify the flight and take a passenger to the correct terminal is simple data processing.
"It is just an extension of the automatic check in process which airports have at the moment."
St Pancras was officially opened by the Queen yesterday. Just over a week until commercially paying customers use the station.
Eurostar to the left, Shinkansen to the right
