LONDON | 2012 Olympics Park Development News

[PortoNuts]

Olympic Village

[jerseyboi]

Originally Posted by woodgnome

wow

[PortoNuts]

[Andre_idol]

Love the greenery on the site

[PortoNuts]

Grandstand seat for David Cameron at Olympic beach volleyball


Historic setting: the players will compete at an arena in Horse Guards Parade. Left, how it will look

At first glance, it could be Wimbledon's Centre Court moved to central London.

But this image actually reveals the final design for the Olympic beach volleyball competition which will be held in Horse Guards Parade.The temporary amphitheatre has been designed with only three sides to maximise the historic Whitehall backdrop for spectators and broadcasters.

The design will also give the Prime Minister an excellent view of the Olympic action without having to leave his Downing Street home.

Tickets to the beach volleyball have been priced up to £350 to reflect the glamour of the setting and the competitors. Organisers expect 480,000 spectators at the 15,000-seat venue over 104 matches, including many played under floodlights.

An artificial beach will be laid using sand brought in from a beach in the north of Britain, chosen by organisers for its soft sand.

The venue will have to be built quickly as the parade ground will be a focal point of celebrations to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee six weeks beforehand. It is a joint project by engineers Atkins and architects Populous who have also designed the Olympic main stadium, handball arena and the Centre Court roof at Wimbledon.

Horse Guards has a history of hosting royal pageantry, from Henry VIII's tournaments to the annual Trooping the Colour.

During the Olympic bid, then Prime Minister Tony Blair joked that he was most looking forward to beach volleyball because he could watch it from his Downing Street window.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...-volleyball.do

[PortoNuts]

A close up render of the Volleyball Stadium.

[PortoNuts]

Aquatics Centre

[PortoNuts]

Russians splash out to hire Marble Arch for Olympic parties

Russian Olympic chiefs are to take over Marble Arch and turn it into a stunning party venue for the 2012 Games.

Details of a multi-million-pound deal to establish “Russia House” on the West End traffic island are being finalised with Westminster council. A temporary multi-storey canopy will be erected around the arch and some of the surrounding parkland will be requisitioned.

The project, which will require planning permission, is being funded by the Russian National Olympic Committee and the organising committee of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Russia has a reputation for staging the most lavish Olympic parties as the country reasserts itself as a sporting superpower. An entire science museum was hired by the Russians as their base for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February.

The Marble Arch site is close to the cluster of Park Lane hotels to be used by Olympic VIPs and will be connected to the network of priority road lanes for officials and sponsors.

The Russians settled on the traffic island after they were told that their first choice, the Royal Albert Hall, was unavailable because of the Proms.

The Marble Arch deal is the most eye-catching of the “Olympic houses” agreed so far for 2012. The venues are used for parties and as trade missions and networking bases for many of the 204 competing nations.

Holland's “Heineken House” is expected to be at Alexandra Palace and the owners of Westfield Stratford City shopping mall, overlooking the Olympic Park, are thought to have held talks with the Australian and British Olympic committees.

France has booked the Old Billingsgate market in the City and Brazil, hosts of the 2016 Olympics, will be based at Somerset House.

The Olympic houses are expected to provide a £100 million boost for the hospitality industry in London.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...pic-parties.do

[jerseyboi]

2012 ceremony to have 'stonking' soundtrack

(UKPA) The London's 2012 Olympic opening ceremony will have an "absolutely stonking soundtrack," chief executive Paul Deighton said.

It will also have a sense of fun and a sense of humour, he predicted.

Deighton suggested the involvement of Danny Boyle, the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire director, as the opening ceremony's artistic director would have a strong impact on the music used and the mood created.

"It will be an absolutely stonking soundtrack. If you look at any of Danny Boyle's films they have a brilliant soundtrack and Britain has a strong musical heritage," Deighton told the Sports Event Management Conference at Twickenham Stadium.

Comparisons to Beijing's spectacular opening ceremony in 2008 are beginning to worry him less and less, Deighton admitted. They will "just be different," he said.

Stephen Daldry, director of big-screen hits such as Billy Elliot and The Reader, is one of the four key executive producers of London 2012's showpiece opening and closing ceremonies.

Deighton said: "I think that Britain boasts creative talent and I think the challenge to them (Boyle and Daldry), and they have accepted this, is how you showcase Britain's enormous cultural creative heritage.

"In Britain, we have a different approach to humour which will come into it somehow.

"The British do have their own sense of humour. I do not imagine that our ceremonies will lose out on the sense of pageantry or sense of performance. There will be fun in there. Ours is bound to have some humour in there."

Boyle, 54, began his career in theatre before moving into television and movies like Shallow Grave, The Beach and 28 Days Later.

[airportman]

Tories want to make the Olympic Park into a high tech centre to rival Silicon Valley according to the Guardian!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/no...valley-cameron

[PortoNuts]

Olympic Park to rival Silicon Valley in David Cameron's vision for east London


Work continues at the Olympic stadium in east London where David Cameron wants to create a hi-tech rival to Silicon Valley.

David Cameron will today set out a vision of London's East End becoming a hi-tech rival to Silicon Valley on the US west coast, disclosing Google, Facebook and a host of cutting-edge firms have committed to invest in the Olympic Park.

In a speech today, the prime minister will announce that he is introducing a new entrepreneurial visa as well as allowing more intra-company transfers – moves that will blow a hole in his plan for an immigration cap.

Cameron will also disclose that he will look at a potentially far-reaching change to intellectual property rights after Google told him UK laws are far more restrictive than the US.

The prime minister will say he is determined to create the right environment for the thriving start-ups already flourishing in London's Old Street and Shoreditch areas to grow into multimillion pound global businesses.

He will say: "Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for hi-tech growth and innovation. But there's no reason why it has to be so predominant.

"Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make east London one of the world's great technology centres."

Cameron's team, in a round of meetings with hi-tech firms and venture capitalists, has won support for his vision.

Google, Facebook, Intel and McKinsey & Co are among the companies that will commit to invest in the future of the area. Google had told him the company could not have been formed in the UK.

He will say: "The service they provide depends on taking a snapshot of all the content on the internet at any one time and they feel our copyright system is not as friendly to this sort of innovation as it is in the United States.

"Over there, they have what are called 'fair-use' provisions, which some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services."

In the two main commitments to east London, Google will create an Innovation Hub for its researchers to come together with developers and academics to create the next generation of applications and services. Facebook will create a permanent home for its Developer Garage programme, which brings together the most talented UK developers and entrepreneurs.

Cameron's decision on intra-company transfers will mean that employees of multinationals who move to work in British branches, potentially numbering in their thousands, will be exempt from the permanent immigration cap to be introduced in April. Out of the 36,490 skilled workers who came to Britain from outside Europe last year, 22,000 came on intra-company transfers. More than half of the ICT visas went to three Indian IT companies and the British IT industry has been pressing for them to be included in the cap. The largest single group of unemployed graduates is in IT.

The decision follows fierce lobbying by big employers including Nissan, Toyota and Honda who threatened to close UK plants if they cannot move staff freely.

The announcement is thought to be the result of a deal between the business secretary, Vince Cable, who wanted a more flexible cap, and the home secretary, Theresa May. UK Border Agency officials have been concerned that the route has been used, particularly by Indian IT companies, to undercut British graduate salaries.

Cameron was lobbied by the Indian government on the issue during his recent visit.

The decision means it will be harder for the government to get net migration – 196,000 last year – down to the "tens of thousands" promised by the next general election.

Home Office sources said the formula leaves the door open for a limit to be placed on intra-company transfers outside the formal immigration cap. One option is to limit the visas to 12 months – which would have blocked all but 6,000 of last year's arrivals. Another option is to require a minimum salary of £45,000 which would also curb numbers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/no...valley-cameron

I’ll turn the East End into the British Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for hi-tech growth and innovation; the place where companies head if they want to break the mould.

At the moment, there is nothing like it anywhere else. But something exciting is happening in east London — so exciting, in fact, that it means we could create another Silicon Valley. This isn't far fetched — all the elements are here too.

Already the area around Old Street and Shoreditch has more than one hundred technology companies, attracted to the cheaper rents, the great transport links and the cafés and galleries. Add to that the Olympic Park. Just a few Tube stops away, there's the potential for nearly one million square feet of flexible office and research space which our technology companies can expand into.

And then throw into the mix the fact that London has more outstanding universities than any other city in the world, plus a host of venture capital firms that are willing to invest, and east London has all the ingredients to become one of the world's leading technology centres.

Indeed, there's so much potential in the area that after many phone calls and dozens of meetings, we've helped to inspire a huge mobilisation of business and enterprise. Today, a who's who of some of the world's biggest companies and organisations — from Facebook to Google, Cisco to McKinsey, BT to Barclays, plus many, many more — are committing to invest in the long-term future of east London. These companies are putting up everything from free business advice to start-ups, to help with financing and the laying down of super-fast broadband cables.

Perhaps most exciting of all, Intel, Google and Facebook are all creating either research labs or innovation spaces in east London, where the latest technologies can come together with new entrepreneurial ideas to produce the businesses of the future. And Vodafone has committed to bring its global innovation fund to the capital, to hunt out cutting-edge British technology.

There's nothing that says Silicon Valley has to dominate the world of technology from now until the end of time. Other hubs can rise to challenge them. The question is where will they be? I believe if we recognise our strengths, have the confidence to really go for it and understand what it takes — London can be one of them.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...icon-valley.do

[PortoNuts]

Basketball Arena

Images from wilkinsoneyre.com --

[sticky91]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11693444

Work has started on the Orbit tower. I don't understand all the criticism about it I think it looks great and at least it's something exciting compared to the rather dull stadium. It is unique and will become another landmark for London.

[RobH]

Hopefully. I'm not convinced it won't end up a mess given the damning CABE review of it. But it looks good in some renders. Fingers crossed!

[PortoNuts]

Is it really supposed to be complete by 2012? That seems a rather short deadline because the construction seems complex. After all, it's 115 metres of steel.

[Eastern37]

The basketball arena is going to look amazing when all the lights are working.

[PortoNuts]

London 2012 Olympic Games will hit sponsors' target by end of 2010


Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said £700m would be raised by the end of 2010.

Organisers of the London Olympics have said that they will hit the upper limit of their pre-Games sponsorship target by the end of this year.

Paul Deighton, the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog), said it would hit the pre-Games target of £700m by the end of 2010, once a handful of deals with suppliers have been tied up.

Estimates of the amount Locog would raise via sponsorship have varied between £600m-700m, roughly a third of the £2bn it needs to stage the Games. Games organisers will now move into an operational phase, during which they will take control of the venues and start "dressing" the Olympic Park.

Organisers targeted sponsors in 2005, soon after winning the right to stage the Games. Most of the Games' sponsorship revenue was secured before the global economic crash in 2008.

So-called "tier one" sponsors, such as Lloyds TSB, British Airways and EDF, which are each paying at least £40m, are looking at ways to "activate" their sponsorship, placing emphasis on corporate social responsibility programmes and staff motivation.

Locog's £2bn budget for the Games will be privately raised – a third will come from domestic sponsors, a third from the International Olympic Committee's sponsorship programme and a third from ticket sales.

Deighton said he is confident the Games would not be held to ransom by transport unions. Locog and City Hall have billed the 2012 Olympics as "the public transport Games". Deighton said he was confident that agreements to keep the Tube, trains and buses running smoothly would be honoured.

"I don't think anybody in this country wants the Games to be anything other than a great success," he said. "If you talk to the TUC, they'll tell you they're right behind us and want this to be a spectacular success and a showcase for everything the country can do. I don't think anybody thinks it's in their interests to have a problem."

Deighton said no formal written agreement had been made with transport unions. "It's not our job," he said. "TfL [Transport for London] and the London Underground have all the experience you could possibly wish of managing their own network so we'll be relying on them to deliver their services."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/no...games-sponsors

[PortoNuts]

Third bidder enters arena to take over Olympic Stadium

A specialist venue operator which helped launch Wembley stadium and the O2 Arena was today revealed as the third bidder for the London Olympic Stadium.

International Stadia Group will compete with two consortiums — West Ham United/Newham council and Tottenham/AEG — to take over the £500 million-plus venue after the 2012 Games. The disclosure today by Estates Gazette ends months of speculation about the identity of a third bidder for the flagship venue.

It comes days before the Olympic Park Legacy Company, which is handling sales, is due to inform bidders whether they have made the shortlist before a deal is signed next March.

ISG says on its website that is has been responsible for generating more than $2 billion in revenues from the sales and marketing of stadium seats at more than 15 projects. It has also been involved with Coventry City Football Club's Ricoh Arena, Galatasaray's Türk Telekom Arena in Istanbul and the Swebank Arena in Solna, Stockholm.

The group has worked extensively with the US National Football League on financing stadium investment. The NFL is understood to be considering options for moving its franchise to the Olympic Stadium.

It also has close ties with US entertainment giant Anschutz (AEG), which is bidding alongside Tottenham. The two worked together on creating, managing and selling the premium seating at the O2 Arena. It is unclear whether the ISG bid seeks to retain the athletics track at the stadium post Games.

West Ham, in partnership with Newham council, entertainment group LiveNation and with the backing of UK Athletics, is committed to maintaining the athletics track post- Games.

Both ISG and the legacy company declined to comment.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...pic-stadium.do

[jerseyboi]

THE faces of 700,000 Brits could be plastered all over the 2012 Olympic Stadium.



A brilliant new plan is proposing to put Facebook profile pics on the arena as the UK celebrates the games in east London.
Absolute Radio has put the proposal to Lord Seb Coe and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The station's football presenter and ex England and Arsenal legend, Ian Wright said: "The Olympics are the most iconic sporting event in the world and securing the London 2012 Games is one of the country's finest achievements.
"It's important that our stadium reflects our country and the people within in - our cultural Olympiads".
The plan will see 700,000 real Britons feature onto the fabric curtain wrap around the stadium.
Brits would enter a competition to have their face featured on the curtain using their profile picture.
A spokesman for Absolute said: "We hope the Brits on the stadium will become a physical part of the legacy of the 2012 Olympics throughout the games."


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...#ixzz14uMxHRdz

[PortoNuts]

Never thought of that, it would be interesting to see.