Is there anything particularly innovative about the Olympic Stadium designs?
The design has been conceived with two roles in mind – a full blown 80,000-seater arena in Olympics mode, substantially reduced to 25,000 seats in its “legacy” role. The stadium will be the showpiece of the Games Enlarge Image It has been designed to allow that transition to happen, with temporary seating and roof, that can be re-used. The design therefore needs less steel than others of a similar size. It also benefits from the inherent stability of being built into a bowl. The main innovation is the use of an 860m fabric wrap around the outside of the stadium, (the same as 72 London buses) which will be creatively lit with images projected onto it to give it vibrancy and a “life of its own”. Afterwards, the fabric will be cut up and turned into souvenir bags! Will the designs go down well with the public? Callers to BBC Radio 5 Live have predictably mixed views. It does not have the wow factor of Beijing’s “bird’s nest” design but neither does it have the engineering headache that ha
