PANSTADIA & ARENA MANAGEMENT WINTER 2013/14
to facilitate a range of staging options, including the suggestion for the ability for a dramatic fl ying arrangement for the culmination of the opening and closing ceremonies – namely a ‘fl ying’ cauldron emerging from the sea and coming to rest in the middle of the Olympic park.
We designed the lower seating tier to take on an extensive series of demountable structures including eight tunnels each nine metres wide and a fully demountable northern section of the lower tier to enable a large-scale staging operation in that section of the seating bowl.
Together with this, and in line with the capacity expectations approaching 40,000 seats, the middle and upper tiers on the south and north ends were designed to be added later, after the Olympic Games. This was because, in legacy, the stadium needed to comply with the requirements of the FIFA World Cup for group games and possibly a quarter fi nal game also. That meant a gross capacity of 45,000.
This legacy requirement also meant delivering all of the sport and other infrastructure required to operate a FIFA-compliant international standard football stadium at this scale. And, in addition, it meant that we had to provide signifi cant fl exible spaces with the curtilage of the stadium for the Olympic overlay also.
Thinking bigger
As mentioned above, by the middle of the year 2011, after construction was well under way on site, the ceremonies department asked Populous to
re-imagine the stadium design for an expanded ceremonies provision for the Sochi Games.
The head of the main broadcasting network in Russia, channel one, and a top fl ight creative team vastly experienced in large scale productions were enlisted in a very short period of time and directed to think on a much larger scale. Their thinking was directed by the constraints that had to be identifi ed, but Populous were very excited by the potential to achieve something entirely new in terms of stadium design to facilitate the expanded ceremonies idea.
Obviously such relatively late re-thinking posed certain risks and a total buy-in from all stakeholders was necessary. Fortunately, all involved immediately saw the potential of the new ideas and the team moved forward rapidly to realise the new design.
Supporting larger ceremony
Such a large scale re-think resulted in a growing awareness that in order to capture the potential of the vast volumes of the stadium to the full, there would be a signifi cant risk of such a vast production being adversely affected by inclement weather and that, therefore, the entirely normal and usual design of the stadium roof would need a radical re-think.
Fortunately, Populous had designed signifi cant live loading capacity in the stadium roof structure already under construction and measures to further
strengthen the structure were still possible given the stage of construction at that time.
As a result the temporary roof structure now constructed bears directly on the permanent roof and all live loading, including allowances for seismic loads and other dynamic loading cases, were also catered for. No further support systems were required and the roof retains its large span characteristics with no column or other support structure obstructions to the seating bowl.
Temporary theatre
The live loading of the temporary roof structure is signifi cant with the roof essentially being a large-scale fl y- tower with staging structures at either end essentially delivering the world’s largest theatre, at least on a temporary basis. Together with this technically sophisticated roof, the fi eld of play is covered with a large staging system containing the ‘underworld’ of back of house staging spaces which will deliver a similar level of staging fl exibility as to that afforded by the roof and staging structures at either end.
The vast temporary structures do not end there: in the ceremonies compound is another huge hangar structure that is currently used for rehearsals and will be used for the pre-staging requirements for the main shows.
Altogether, this infrastructure facilitates a ceremonies show on a scale never seen before, utilising custom-designed technology that promises to astound and entertain in equal measure the worldwide audience come 7 February 2014.
Author: Damon Lavelle, Principal at Populous.
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showcase architecture
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