Rethinking the Spatial Impact of the Olympics

Rethinking the Spatial Impact of the Olympics

Reinders, J.R.

Caso, O. (mentor)
Nijsse, R. (mentor)
Chen, Y. (mentor)
Rocco, R.C. (mentor)

Architecture and The Built Environment

Architecture

Explore Lab

2014-04-17

The amount and size of the Olympic facilities have outgrown the needs of host cities. Most Olympic venues cannot be used after the event and maintenance is extremely expensive. Therefore cities cannot optimally benefit from the catalysing effect that mega-events, such as the Olympics, can have on host cities. An over-production of sport venues causes bad physical legacy. This research addresses the spatial impact of the Olympics and poses a hypothesis of decentralisation. Can the spatial impact of the Olympics on a city be improved by decentralizing the event in a regional setting? This document analyses the spatial organisation and impact of the 6 latest Olympics (from Barcelona 1992 until London 2012). The London Olympics is also thoroughly analysed on the process of hosting the Olympics. All of this is concluded in a strategy formulation that poses how the spatial impact could be improved by decentralizing the Olympic organisation in a regional setting. This theoretical strategy is subsequently tested on a networked city region. The region chosen is the Øresund region between Denmark and Sweden. The reason for the implementation on this specific region comes from a comparative study between different European networked city region. It is concluded that from those regions, the Øresund region has the biggest developing potential and could therefore benefit the most from hosting the Olympic Games. The Øresund region is analysed and a strategic development vision is formulated that integrates the Olympics as kick-starter of the cities' and region's future development.

Olympics
legacy
Olympic Stadium
transformation
re-use
Oresund
Copenhagen

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:78df8a45-0794-4ca7-86f4-cca456d25e92

2014-04-17

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Reinders, J.R.