After the Athens Olympics 2004, Greece was left with massive athletic structures that the country could not even afford to maintain. Most of the facilities built for the Games, including the Olympic Park, were left rotting and are now being used by the refugees as slum-like housing.
Rio learnt a valuable lesson from the demise of Athens. The structures built for the London Olympics were temporary sports facilities that were taken down once the Games were over. Rio has gone one step ahead and opted for the “Nomadic Architecture”.
Mayor of the city, Eduardo Paes opted to go for the modular structures that could later be taken apart and used to rebuild community halls or schools.
Bill Hanway is the global sports leader of the engineering company AECOM that was responsible for finalising the master plan for the Rio Olympic Village. He commented on Eduardo’s vision for the use of the sports facilities after the Games.
“He said, ‘What is the opportunity that we create these temporary buildings so that they would have a second life beyond just a large tent? Is there a way of thinking about them as modular components that can then be rebuilt?'”
Future Arena is the venue for the handball events in Rio Olympics. The huge facade of the facility will be transformed into rain screen and shades for the four schools. The structure will be rebuilt into four schools, each for 500 children.
The massive international broadcast centre currently houses more than 20,000 journalists that landed in Rio to cover the greatest show of sportsmanship on Earth. The generators and air conditioners installed in the facility are supported by large steel frames that will later be repurposed as the base for a high school for the local community. As Hanway explained:
“That’s a simple move of taking a structure that’s not necessary in the future of the building and moving it to a new location and giving it a new life.”
The 18,000 seats installed inside the Olympic Tennis Center will also be reused while the swimming pools will be employed elsewhere.