It was the last of the six permanent sports venues to be completed for the 2012 Games; in addition, the main stadium of Populous Bureau and Peter Cook, the highly acclaimed Michael Hopkins velodrome, media center, basketball and handball arenas form the basis of the "Olympic legacy".
In contrast to these structures, the Hadid building was conceived before London received the right to host the Olympics, so it was originally designed on a much larger scale: its role was to attract the attention of the IOC members and compare in effect with the "pearl" of the previous Beijing Summer Games - the stadium Herzog and de Meuron.
But when it came to implementation, it turned out that the state intends to save money as much as possible. Therefore, the project was reworked many times, Hadid was accused of exceeding the budget, she vigorously objected to critics … As a result, the project was cheapened, and the main victim of this was its main element - a wide, diamond-shaped roof. Now the "diamond" has narrowed considerably, and from under it huge temporary stands for 15,000 people became visible. Their clumsy blocks flank a streamlined volume, already smaller than before, reminiscent of a stingray-stingray (although the nickname stuck to the building). This volume, with its main stands for 2,500 spectators, will remain after 2012: it will serve as a swimming pool for East Londoners and a venue for various competitions. Its side walls, which will run where the stands are now located, will be made of glass so that you can see the surrounding park from the interior.
The timber-clad roof hides the steel structures weighing 3,000 tons: such a strong structure is necessary to dispense with supports, providing a complex ceiling profile: between the swimming pool and the diving pool, the roof flexes gently. At the same time, it rests on the walls only at three points: two from the north and one from the south, overlapping the basins located one after another with a span of 120 m. The building itself is 160 mx 90 m in size; there are also changing rooms, other utility rooms and a training pool in the basement. Its budget was 268 million pounds. The total budget for the 2012 Games is £ 9 billion.
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