Olympic Masterplans of Yore, as Rio Launches 2016 Competition

Architizer News

Olympic Masterplans of Yore, as Rio Launches 2016 Competition

May 4, 2011

Talk about quick turnaround: Yesterday Rio de Janeiro’s city government launched an international competition to design the masterplan for the 2016 Olympics – with the winners announcement scheduled on July 13.

That’s just two months and nine days away, for those of you who aren’t sure what month it is.

Click through for a look back the master plans of other Olympic host cities, plus details on the competition.

The competition will be held in conjunction with Brazil’s Architects Institute (BAI) and the Rio 2014/16 Institute. The park will be located in an area called Barra da Tijuca, a western zone of Rio, and will encompass 10 Olympic venues (containing 15 disciplines) and 11 Paralympic sports competitions. The site is 12,701,414 square feet of land, currently occupied by the Nelson Piquet race track. The masterplan will offer venues like the Maria Lenk Aquatic Centre, Rio Olympic Arena and Rio Olympic Velodrome.

Applications accepted from May 2nd till June 15th here, while final entries must be submitted by June 30th. The result will be unveiled on July 13th. [Competition info via Bustler]

Anyways, good luck to those of you entering – it’s bound to be a pretty cool project, since the crazy elevation changes and dense urban fabric of Rio offer myriad challenges and inspirations. In the mean time, what plans have been chosen by past Olympic committees? A brief survey:

London’s masterplan for the 2012 games by a team of designers and engineers from Buro Happold, Allies & Morrison, Foreign Office and HOK Sport.

While Beijing’s much more orthogonal 2008 Olympic masterplan was the work of Sasaki.

Athens 2004, designed by BVN Architects.

While the 2000 Sydney Olympic masterplan, also by BVN Architects, seems to come from a simpler era (one where photoreal renderings weren’t the status quo for planning presentations!).