More and more often, host cities choose Olympic architecture designed to have a second life. The Rio 2016 Olympics featured two great examples. The modularly built handball arena now supplies the building materials for 4 separate urban schools. The 20,000-seat aquatic stadium rebuilds into 2 local community pools.
What can we expect from Tokyo?
Tokyo's high population density and real estate prices coupled with Japan's advanced technology equals exciting innovations to come. Here are some highlights:
Pod Olympic Village:
Modeled on Tokyo's capsule hotels that use as little space as possible, the sleeping quarters for each Olympic athlete will be 4 by 2 by 2.5 meters (twice the size of a regular Tokyo capsule). The Olympic Village transitions to 5 deluxe downtown pod hotels after the games.
Ode-to-the-Auto Spire:
A smaller scale replica of the 2012 Tokyo Skytree, this spire will have an observation deck at both 150 and 120 meters. It will be built solely out of auto parts from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Suzuki and Mazda. The Japanese manufactures will use all parts in production after the games. The observation decks use 4,000 car windshields.
Sticky Rice Stadium:
The steep sided-stadium used for taekwondo, judo and wrestling will remain in place after the Olympics and has an added feature that it can be used as a giant rice cooker for either Tokyo special events or in the case of a national emergency.
Paper Crane Arena:
The beach volleyball arena is a temporary structure made totally out of folded paper. It will seat 12,000 on folded paper riser seating. Three giant folded cranes can be positioned over the spectators for shade. It will be picked up by city recycling after the games.
Transformer Building:
The home of the press, the International Broadcast Center building, boasts the most dramatic transition. Post games the building stands up, walks to the nearest train tracks and clicks itself into place for its new life as a bullet train.
Modular Toilet Facilities:
As a sign of international goodwill Tokyo is building all its temporary bathroom facilities so that they can be transported and used, if desired, by any of the next 3 countries hosting the summer Olympics.
Sayonara! See you in Tokyo 2020!
