Architecture of the Olympics

ArchDaily posted a nice introduction to the $100 million stadium that will only be used 4 times. (mapped)

Olympic Forest Park

For a place that was supposed to be such a premier space, it is funny that there hasn't been more publicity about the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing. The best set of computer plan images I have seen online are these from t-gardenblog. Is this video from the same place?

Wear red, score more

Here's a time when design research spills over into the Olympics. We teach our students that colors are not neutral and they need to understand the implications. Research finds that competitors get better scores when they wear red. This is true even when the performance is the same. How'd that work out in the gymnastics? Oh.

Bird's Nest drawing lesson'

You've seen the real thing, now you can learn to draw your own Bird's Nest.



h/t Daily Dose

More relevant Olympic madness

Can't get your visa in time to go to China? Google Earth has 3d buildings at the Olympic site in Beijing including the Birds Nest and Swimming Cube.

Olympic Medal Map

As part of their extensive preparation for the Olympics, the NY Times has prepared an interactive graphic that maps out the medals won by countries in all of the summer Olympics from 1896 to the present. You just most a slider bar to dial in the year you want and then, voila!

You can slide it over to the Paris Olympics in 1900 and see that Belgium got 5 gold medals. What you can't see in the graphic is that one of Belgium's 5 gold medals was for live pigeon shooting.

Beijing Olympics

I think we are going to keep hearing lots about the design side of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, enough so that I might as well create a tag for it. There are plenty of story lines ranging from the design competition, the treatment of some Western designers, the high-profile venues, the rapid development of Chinese design talent, and the response as all the world rediscovers the amazing growth in design that China is experiencing. Anyway, Dwell has a story on Sasaki's design of the high-profile venues that helps set the stage for this continuing story.