Multiple TWP postings about Olympic Site Visit

Five students wrote about our visit to the Olympic Park. Instead of picking one, I have included them all here. There is some repetition but I wanted to share all the different write ups.

DYLAN

On August 2^nd our group took a tour of the London 2012 Olympics Site. I got in touch with our guide Christian Bonard through my dad’s work contacts. Christian, who is the Head of Environment and Sustainability Assurance for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), focused the trip on the sustainability aspect of the site. Being an environmental engineer concerned about the world living in a lower impact way, I loved the focus of the tour.

The first thing I was really impressed with was that sustainability was imbedded in London’s proposal to the Olympics Committee when they were trying to win the bid. Christian talked about how sustainability was the main reason London won the rights to be the site of the 2012 Olympics, and rightfully so. The Olympics Delivery Authority set twelve goals for the duration of the game, and Christian explained the six he was in charge of including biodiversity, waste management, water management, and the carbon footprint of the site. Every building was designed to incorporate recycled materials, some from the demolition of the old buildings that were on the land planned for the Olympic venues. I was really impressed that the contractors surpassed almost every sustainability goal the ODA set for them.

Another aspect of the park I thought was cool was that all of the buildings were built to be temporary unless there was a plan for a long-term use of the building after the games. The athletes village (the housing for the 17,000 athletes) will be turned into 2800 houses including affordable homes after the games. Every other building will be turned into some sort of useful building for the community, moved elsewhere, or kept as a sports venue with fewer seats. I have always been concerned about what happens to the billions of dollars poured into these large events, and I am glad to know all these buildings are not just being torn down. Part of the bid for London also was the revitalize East London and I believe using the buildings after the games end will improve the quality of life there.

I really enjoyed this tour and am glad it worked out, even though there were a few minor problems along the way. It makes me excited to see sustainability in action, and it affirmed my love for all things environment related. Seeing sustainability be the focus of the London 2012 Olympics Site made me realize that I want to get a job in some sort of big picture work involving the environment, not just the technical aspect.

ANDY

Today we visited the site of the 2012 London Olympics. Thanks to Dylan’s dad’s connections we were able to get a tour not offered to the general public. The two biggest issues that they talked about were sustainability and safety.

 The most major goal of the construction of the 2012 Olympic center, and the reason why London won the bid, is sustainability. When they demolished over 200 buildings to build the center, well over 90% of the materials were recycled and used. Hardly anything was sent to landfill. They are also experimenting with new binding agents for concrete and pavement materials so that less and more bio-friendly materials can be used. Finally, they are making the center literally “green”, unlike some past Olympic centers in that they are having a river run through the whole thing, and building a gigantic park around it. This allows for the creation of lots of animal habitats, as well as making for a pleasant atmosphere for people who want to temporarily escape the madness of the stadium.

 The managers of the Olympic center project are also focusing heavily on safe working conditions. At present, the London Olympic stadium is the only one in history that has had no fatalities during its construction. We were told that China, in the last Olympics, lost 43 or more workers. I noticed also that as we walked around the construction zone, on all sorts of things like steps and fences, there were friendly warnings about safety. They weren’t the oppressive doom and gloom variety that we are so familiar with in the United States though. Instead messages simply reminded workers to be safe and have a good day and the like. I thought this was a nice change from what we are used to. It gives people credit for knowing how to do their jobs, but still creates a safe and friendly work environment.

 What I personally found to be the most interesting were our discussions about the various technical challenges involved in the project. The guide mentioned that much of the site was built on an old landfill, so they had to be very careful about what they were building over. They used imaging to figure out what was down there, and once they even found a mild radiation source. Of course there were also all sorts of challenges to deal with in relation to their sustainability and environmental goals. All of the contractors would bid on how well they could do different jobs, and how green they could make it, so there was some real innovation going on there.

 I really enjoyed the exclusive access to see the Olympic site before most people. They are really taking sustainability to a new level, while still creating some pretty stunning structures. The guides were friendly and informative. I was glad to have gotten a unique look at what will be the center stage of the world for a while next year.

EMILY

On August 2^nd, 2011 I completed my last, and possibly my favorite, Tourist with a Purpose: going to the Olympic Stadium. Taking a tour of where the Olympics will be held next year is definitely a memorable experience. I was blown away by the amount of work and effort put into making the whole production come together.

One of the most interesting facts I learned on the Olympic tour was about how London won the bid for the Summer 2012 Olympics. In July of 2005, London won the bid against major cities like Madrid and Paris because of their idea to focus on building a sustainable structure. Everything built for the Olympics in London was required to use about 20% or more recycled materials. Not only are the structures sustainable, but also energy, water, and ecology were all main objectives for London. For the soil alone, 80% of it was retained and reused after clean up. The entire day we spent hearing about how companies would compete against each other to offer the most sustainable structure. People working on site even receive badges if they provide an idea that is especially environmentally friendly. Learning all about the way London saves money, energy, and water to help the environment was very inspirational. One building, the Velodrome, even has a built in natural air conditioner to cool the building. This building alone cuts back significantly on energy use. London is proving their place in the world and stepping up their game. They will be a hard act to follow because of their very eco-friendly set up.

Another fascinating piece of information about the Olympic site was the amount of work that goes into this event. London has been working six years on getting ready for the Olympics. They have cleared and cleaned the facility, reused almost everything they destroyed, and then built again. For sustainability reasons, barges or train brought almost all of the materials onto the site. Contractors even had to widen the river, overturn millions of square kilometers of soil, and essentially create an entirely new city. I was amazed at the effort and the budget of the project. The Olympic budget is about 9.3 billion pounds! Imagine how much can be done with that amount of money.

After visiting the Olympic site, I cannot wait to watch the Olympics. Seeing the effort going into this game is quite admirable. I especially liked hearing about how this Olympic site is environmentally friendly. Hopefully this production will inspire other developers to keep the environment in mind when building and reconstructing land.

SPENCER

First off, I can now officially say that I have been to the Olympics. Dylan arranged a tour of the Olympic site through his father’s connections with the contractors working on the site. I had no idea what to expect but when we arrived I started to understand how good a deal this was. When we got there we had to go through security and because of some miscommunication none of us had our passports, which apparently we needed because they do not accept US driver’s licenses. We managed to slip through with the help of our guide and they eventually let us in.

The first stop was the Olympic Stadium. I figured we would just be driving around in a bus snapping off some generic touristy pictures the whole time, but when they told us we were getting out and going in I got very excited for the rest of the tour. The scale of everything there is just massive and it kind of highlights the importance of the Olympics as a whole. It was very cool to be inside the stadium that 4 billion people will be watching come Summer 2012.

Every single structure was designed with the environment and sustainability in mind. A big reason that London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics was due to their efforts to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Much of the materials used to build the facilities were either recycled or from the actual buildings that were demolished from the sight before construction. There were approximately 200 factories and structures that had been condemned and simply sat around contaminating the ground. They tore everything down and cleaned the dirt, 70% of which had been contaminated. The buildings were designed to be of maximum efficiency and still were all very beautiful. The efforts they underwent there serve to highlight the capabilities of engineering and architecture today. We can make a functioning building that is environmentally friendly and still have it be architecturally beautiful. It just takes the cooperation of several different groups who all have the same sustainability objective. The site visit was an awesome glimpse into the Olympics and I’m sure it will be even more beautiful when they actually come around. I wish I would be able to go next Summer, but I think I can just settle for watching it on TV.

MORGAN

I will probably be the 8^th person to write this exact same TWP, but it’s OK because this was one of the most awesome places any of us has ever visited. This past week the entire class took a tour of the 2012 London Olympic Park. Thanks to Dylan’s dad, who works in Virginia at one of the companies who are in charge of making sure the Olympic Park is built sustainable, we were able to take a VIP tour of the Park. I loved this site visit because the Olympics are my favorite thing to watch and I’m studying environmental engineering where sustainability is a big deal.

On the tour we had the opportunity to actually walk into the Olympic Stadium where the opening ceremony will be taking place and where the soccer and track events will take place. To be able to stand where in just a year hundreds of World famous athletes will be standing was just mind blowing. Not only was this sentimentally awesome but the architecture and design of the stadium was also amazing. The design of the stadium had lots of different angles worked into the framework. These angles replicate the angles that are in the 2012 Olympics logo. The chairs in the stadium were color coordinated to also incorporate the same angles. I can’t wait until the Olympics start next year and be able to tell my friends and family that I stood in the Olympic Stadium. We did not get the opportunity to go inside any of the other buildings, but we saw the outsides of the aquatics building, the basketball arena, the Velodrome, and the athlete’s village.

During the tour we learned about how sustainable the Park is being built. Each of the buildings are being contracted out by different companies but each company must meet the sustainable requirements. Then entire Olympic Park has many goals in having the buildings made out of a certain percent of recycle material or only having a small percent of the waste going to land fields versus being reused.  Many of the buildings are made out of light weight removable material, so when the Olympics are over the buildings can be removed or can stay if needed. Learning how to make such big structures in a sustainable way was my most exciting part of the tour. Being an environmental engineer I was thrilled the learn that there are some really cool jobs where you can take your environmental engineering skills and make something extraordinary out of it. I cannot wait until we get to watch the London 2012 Olympics next year.

TWP: Tate Modern

Dylan and Spencer went to Tate Modern. Here is Dylan's write up:

Tate Modern is arguably one of the most prominent landmarks in Bankside, as it is housed in the former Bankside Power Station. Spencer and I met up there, as I have always had an interest in modern art and Spencer said it related to his minor. The building is huge, and one third of it is currently not in use as EDF Energy just released the property in 2006. We really enjoyed the museum, and were disappointed we had to leave for dinner before we got to go through every exhibit.

One room in particular I found interesting was called the Joseph Beuys room. This artist worked primarily with large installations of symbolic objects, including my favorite piece, “Lightning with Stag in its Glare.” The clods of copper on the floor, what Spencer and I thought were feces, represented primordial creatures. A bronze triangle symbolized lightning reaching down from the heavens, illuminating half-formed creatures. There was also a small compass on a box, which represented the natural energies of the Earth. This piece was an example of art that you can’t see anywhere else but a modern art museum. It was so abstract and different that in a room full of weird, it caught my eye. I enjoyed looking at the installation, although I wouldn’t have had any idea what it was about without the description.

The other exhibit I particularly enjoyed was a room filled with John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi propaganda. It is said Heartfield was one of the first to invent the photomontage, a method of cutting out and pasting other pictures together. I really liked this exhibit because this communist supporter used laughter as a devastating weapon to point out the fallacies in the Nazi’s logic, and he was good at it. One picture was Hitler preaching, except you could see inside of him and his backbone was made out of coins. As I walked around the room that was filled with dozens of pictures, I grew to respect this man who publicly denounced the wartime hate and lies that the Nazis created. His pictures are so witty and relevant, even today, that they deserve to be displayed in a modern art museum.

I loved going to Tate Modern. It expanded my view of what art can be, and definitely made me think about what some pieces meant. I also liked the contrast of the hustle and bustle right outside of the museum in South London and the peaceful silence of the appreciative on the inside. This trip made going to see modern art galleries a main priority of mine once I get home.

TWP: Sustainability

Dylan's write up about his experiences with sustainability in London:

During my stay here in London, I’ve seen a noticeable change from where I’ve lived in the U.S. in regards to sustainability. I am so excited to see this, as sustainability is important to me and I want it to be a major aspect in any job I may take after college.

A major aspect of sustainability is energy use, and I’ve certainly seen a lot of examples of London trying to lower their carbon emissions. On my ride in on A3, I saw a billboard that said “Ricoh: 100% solar and wind powered billboard.” I was immediately impressed with the visibility of sustainable energy use in London. 

Other examples of renewable energy use have been EDF’s sponsorship of the London Eye. In each capsule, the signs on the side not only explained the skyline, but how landmarks such as Tate Modern and City Hall were working to become more sustainable. Even though EDF is primarily a coal-fired energy producer, I was really impressed with their attempts to inform people about the sustainable aspects of London. Also, when I was looking at music festivals to go to, there was a service called liftshare.com that promoted ridesharing as a way to “do their bit and reduce pollution on the environment .“ I was impressed that this service was promoted on the website of the actual music festival.

Another aspect of sustainability is recycling. There isn’t a radical change here, but the subtle idiosyncrasies struck me as making all the difference. For example, every box of every product I buy from Sainsburys tells what part of the packaging can be recycled. This is better than in the US, where to some people, it is not clear what can be recycled. My cereal box from Sainsburys also took a stand for recycling, where it proclaimed “If every Sainsbury’s customer recycled their cereal box, 750 tonnes of cardboard would be reused every year. That’s the equivalent to 101 double-decker buses!” All sorts of other products seem to claim what percent recycled material they are, like my Sainsburys plastic bags that are 50% recycled material.

On one hand, I am extremely excited to see all these revolutionary changes in regard to sustainability happening in England. On the other, I am disappointed at how poorly America compares to the prevalence of sustainability here. Hopefully, I can take the lessons I’ve learned from London about recycling and renewable energy back to America to find out some way to enact social change on a large scale level. As an environmental engineer at NC State, my courses will mostly focus on water quality, but I am intensely dedicated to include a sustainability aspect in my education. I know it will be hard, but one day I hope to be part of the change that causes America to be more sustainable like London.

TWP: London transportation

Dylan's TWP write up of his experiences on the London transportation system:

In one way, London’s public transportation is exactly like Raleigh’s. There are trains and buses. But look at any other aspect than what the public transportation system consists of, and London is another beast entirely. My use of London’s trains and buses drew from my previous experience in Raleigh and Washington D.C., but also taught me lessons I could never learn in smaller cities like Raleigh.

I use the tube almost every day to get around in London. Having an Oyster card provided is a huge bonus, as it would cost tremendous amounts of money to get around without it. In my experience the tube is not overcrowded, and TFL (Transport for London) is working to improve it anyway. The more capacity the tube has for people, the less people can take cars and be better for the environment. Catching and figuring out the directions of the tube is relatively easy, and after only a week I am fairly familiar with our usual routes. The only bad part about the tube is that it closes at midnight.

The night bus is an adventure that every tourist in London needs to try to believe. Coming back to your apartment at three in the morning with a bus full of reasonably drunk people is more fun than you would think. Also figuring out which routes you need to take home at three in the morning, even without having a bit to drink yourself, is a challenge in and of itself. This bus is a good alternative to catching a taxi, which is more expensive and worse for the environment.

London’s public transportation system relates to my major because I believe an effective public transportation system in any reasonably sized city will have to be a part of a sustainable future. As fuel-efficient as we can make cars, putting dozens of people on one of these fossil-fuel burning vehicles is better than five at the most. An effective rail system (let’s face it, Amtrak isn’t the best) is also another part of the solution. Sustainability is where the future lies, and part of sustainability will have to be public transportation.