 |
|
|
|||||
When athletes arrive in Milan for the 2026 Winter Olympics, theyll find themselves living on top of what was once a bustling 19th-century rail yard. The newly revealed athletes village is located in the citys historic Scalo di Porta Romana districtand when the Games are over, itll be converted into Italys largest-ever affordable student housing development. The Olympic Village design was led by the global architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). It includes six mass-timber residential buildings, two former train repair sheds that have been renovated into communal spaces, and 40,000 square meters of green space. After the Winter Olympics take place, the village will be transformed into 1,700 student apartments in time for the 2026-2027 school year. [Image: courtesy SOM] The repurposing of the 2026 athletes village follows a long history of similar past efforts, including converting former athlete housing into resorts, luxury condos, and mixed-use developmentsall of which have achieved varying degrees of success. [Photo: Dave Burk/ SOM] Inside the 2026 Athletes Village Photos of Milans Scalo di Porta Romana district from the early-20th century paint a picture of an ultra-industrial zone populated by factories, smokestacks, and railway cars. Today Milans administrative body, the Comune di Milano, is in the midst of a multiyear project to convert the district into a sprawling neighborhood complete with green space and commercial and residential zones. Part of that plan includes first transforming the former rail yard into a global destination for the Olympics and, later, a student housing development. Porta Romana is a unique neighborhood, says Colin Koop, design partner at SOM. Originally situated outside the city walls, the neighborhood developed as a unique mix of industrial buildings, factories, and farms driven by its adjacency to the gate to Rome. Our project takes direct inspiration from these practical, utilitarian buildings in the siting and composition of our six, interconnected buildings. [Image: courtesy SOM] The site chosen for the athletes village, located on the southwest corner of the former rail yard, included two abandoned train repair shedswhich, according to Koop, were found in various states of ruin. To preserve the historic buildings, his team embarked on an extensive reinforcement of their existing structures. To do this, they had to entirely replace both roofs to meet seismic requirements, reconstruct several supporting walls, and rework crumbling facades with careful attention to the preservation of the buildings architectural character. The interiors are largely defined by the restored timber structure and largely left as an open hall, similar to their original spatial layout, Koop says. During the Olympics, the two buildings will serve various uses for competing athletes, including a dining hall, information and logistics center, and communal lounge. [Photo: Dave Burk/ SOM] Beside the renovated buildings are six new apartment complexes, each composed primarily of single-occupancy rooms with their own bathrooms. Every floor includes amenities like communal kitchens, study rooms, and lounges, making them easily convertible into future student housing, Koop says. Fitness centers, screening rooms, and laundry facilities are incorporated on the ground floor. Where the buildings truly stand out from previous athlete housing, though, is in their pocket courtyards and climbing greenery. These green spaces are designed both to pay homage to Milans architecture and to incorporate natural daylight in every room. [Photo: Dave Burk/ SOM] Milan has a rich tradition of courtyard buildings with vertical gardens climbing up their facades, Koop says. We were inspired by these beautiful private terraces, which soften the city’s stone, brick, and plaster facades with rich palettes of plants and trees. We set out to extend this tradition through the creation of two grand facades of social terraces, which cover the eastern and western portions of the site. By the time students are ready to move in, Koop adds, the buildings incorporated irrigated planters and metal cables will have allowed plants to cover the facades entirely, enveloping the student spaces in a canopy of green. [Photo: Dave Burk/ SOM] The challenges of repurposing Olympic housing This is far from the first time that an athletes village site has been repurposed after the Olympics. In fact, the practice has been around for decades. After the 1996 Atlanta Games, athlete housing was converted into student dorms that were first used by Georgia State University and later by Georgia Tech. Following the nearly $12 billion 2012 Summer Olympics in London, housing in the city’s East Village neighborhood was turned into mixed-use residential and commercial space, with some of the former flats retailing for as much as $1 million back in 2021. After the 2008 Games in Beijing, the Olympic Village site became public parkland and memorial spaces. In Sydney, following the 2000 Summer Games, the village was transformed into a residential suburb. These transformations have sometimes proved unsuccessful, or even damaging to local communities. The 2016 Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro was the largest in the history of the Games at the time, but after the athlete housing was converted to luxury condos, the space reportedly fell vacant, coming to serve for some as a symbol of the Games wasteful excesses. Back in 2024when Paris was preparing to turn its athletes village into sustainable housing and office spacepolitical scientist Jules Boykoff told Fast Company that attempts to reuse Olympic infrastructure often fail. [Photo: Dave Burk/ SOM] Unfortunately, the Olympics have an ignominious tradition of creating white elephants, or stadiums and other venues that remain underused and expensive to maintain in the wake of the Games, he said. He added that organizers often make promises to build social housing that fall through, like in Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012, when both projects ended up being essentially nationalized, paid for by taxpayers, and then promises around social housing mostly evaporated in the face of market exigencies. In the case of the 2024 Olympic Village in Paris, established residents reported during construction that they were forced out of their homes to make way for the new housing. Currently, Paris is in the process of converting the Olympics infrastructure into a new district, though concerns around gentrification remain. The Olympic Games are a limited-time event, notorious for passing through the host city in the blink of an eye. Whether the SOM team’s vision for the Milan site lasts long after 2026 remains to be seen.
Category:
E-Commerce
Every year, new productivity hacks promise to save us from burnout, inefficiency, and disconnection at work. We reorganize calendars, color-code to-do lists, and install apps that track keystrokes and hours. And yet, despite all the hacks, employees are exhausted, disengaged, and creatively stuck. What if the problem isnt that we need more productivity toolsbut that we need more play? Thats not a metaphor. I mean literal play. The kind that is open-ended, imaginative, and unconcerned with outcomes. In my decades as a play designer and educator, Ive watched executives, engineers, and designers from companies like Google, Nike, and Lego light up when they are given permission to play again. Not because they suddenly learned to be creativebut because they remembered they already are. Play as Permission, Not Performance Play is not the opposite of work; it is the antidote to burnout. Free playspontaneous, nonhierarchical, and outcome-freerequires us to embrace possibility, release judgment, and reframe success. Those three elements are exactly what todays teams are missing. When I lead workshops, I dont hand out another strategy framework or ask people to brainstorm. I hand them Rigamajig planks or a pile of cardboard and say, Create something. Thats it. No rules, no rubric. At first, people fidget, waiting for the point. Then they loosen up. They laugh. They collaborate without titles or hierarchy. They invent. What Ive really given them is not a toy but permissionto stop performing professionalism, and to start playing again. I think of myself as a play coach. Like a sports coach, I help people unlearn the stiffness of adulthood, the belief that play is frivolous, and retrain their instinct to experiment. The difference is that play is not about winning. Its about rediscovering curiosity. Why Hacks Fail and Play Works Productivity hacks focus on controlling the process and outcome: more efficient emails, tighter schedules, and measurable success. But outcomes arent the only reason we work, and controlling the process usually kills any joy in the work. Play demands the opposite of control: letting go. Consider what happens in my sessions. At first, people compare credentials and second-guess every move. Then they start tinkering. Soon theyre laughing too hard to judge one another. Some even take off jackets and shoes. The shift is unmistakable: They move from performance to presence. Play is also radically egalitarian. In a room where the CEO and an intern are both building oddball contraptions out of wood planks, hierarchy fades. Everyone is invited to contribute, not for efficiency, but for the diversity of talents that play reveals. That leveling effect fosters the kind of psychological safety that research shows is essential for innovation. The Playful Mindset From my research and practice, Ive found that adult teams thrive when they adopt what I call the Playful Mindset: Embrace Possibility. Ask what if? and treat the workplace like an adventure playground. Release Judgment. Let go of worrying about looking silly or wasting time. Play is a judgment-free zone where odd ideas arent embarrassing but essential. Reframe Success. In play, success isnt about hitting a metricits about the experience itself. The fun is the point. And paradoxically, that freedom often produces the very innovations teams are chasing with their hacks. Be Your Own Play Coach The good news: You dont need an outside facilitator to begin. You can become your own play coach. Start small. Turn the next team meeting into a tinkering session with random office supplies. Walk the long way to lunch and make a game of it. Bring in an activity that has no deliverable attached. Play doesnt ask you to stop workingit asks you to work differently. It invites teams to reconnect as humans, to experiment without fear, and to rediscover the joy that fuels real creativity. If you want better collaboration, stronger resilience, and more authentic innovation, dont download another productivity app. Hireor becomea play coach. Because your team doesnt need another hack. They need to play.
Category:
E-Commerce
I can’t think of anything better than assembling Lego blocks. Except assembling gigantic Lego that I can actually walk, jump, and nap on. Which is precisely what Lego and Nike did at Baoshan No. 2 Central Primary School in Shanghai. The school has 1,400 students who previously had insufficient sport and play facilities. Nike, which is building 100 playgrounds in schools all around China, decided to partner with Lego to fix that (the two are already partners in a series of cross-branding Lego sets and sports gear). According to the companies, the design was deeply collaborative and student-drivenand it shows: Instead of the previous sad concrete playground there’s now a bright orange-and-yellow shock-absorbent bouncy surface. On it, drawn in white, a 2-by-3 brick outline marks play areas, serving as a blueprint for students to arrange giant blue or white Lego pieces of different shapes in obstacle courses and any other structure they can imagine. The concept originated from students at Baoshan No. 2 who participated in a Lego China Build the Change workshop, where they used Lego bricks to design their ideal playground. Several student insights directly shaped the final architectural design, according to the company. “Children are our role models and creativity is their superpower,” a Lego spokesperson told me. “They have an endless imagination and can think outside the box.” OLA Shanghai then translated the children’s miniature prototypes into a playground layout and full-scale modular structures, which are giant interlocking Lego pieces that could be easily assembled, reconfigured, and stored. Legos golden 2-by-3 rule The architects decided to build the playgrounds layout around the geometry of a standard 2-by-3 Lego brick, a plastic block with two lines of three studs, much like the Danish companys own Lego House. The 2-by-3 shape is painted on the ground, which serves as a blueprint for students to organize the Lego blocks that they can assemble for their own training and play circuits with bricks big enough to climb on. There are infinite configurations for the playground; the bricks can be stored when theyre not being used so the space can serve other purposes. In practice, the whole thing works like a life-size Lego set that allows children to become the architects of their own space. The playground features more than 10 dynamic zonesfrom athletic activities to imaginative spacesdesigned specifically for China’s “10-minute breaks, the government-mandated rest periods between classes designed to promote athletic and social interaction. Nike says that within these breaks kids are invited to move freely, play boldly, and unleash their creativity. The zones include adaptable climbing structures, balancing and exploratory elements, interchangeable routes and obstacle zones, and seating. Recycled sneakers The playground is made from recycled sneakers; Nike used approximately 4 tons of Nike Grind to build it. This is a material made from manufacturing waste and consumers’ old shoes, all processed into rubber granules at a facility developed and managed by Nike’s technology partner Tongji University. The entire buffer coating layer, which is the safety surface kids land on when they fall, was paved exclusively with Nike Grind. This playground is number 50 in Nike’s Sport Access for All initiative, which is committed to building 100 sustainable courts in Greater China by 2030 as part of the company’s Move to Zero sustainability program. Nike has been partnering with athletes, artists, and designers across China to create these spaces. Previous collaborations included the “Bufferfly Court” in Yunan province with fashion designer Susan Fang, the “CR7 Court” in Gansu province with footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (where limited-edition football boots were auctioned to fund construction), and the “FIBA Pigalle Basketball Court” in Beijing with Parisian designer Stéphane Ashpool. Nike told me the company partnered with Lego “because both brands share a deep belief in the power of creative play and movement to unlock kids’ potential.” The court at Baoshan No. 2 Central Primary School, Nike tells me, marks a “significant milestone” in combining youth sport, creative play, and sustainability in a single collaborative model. Lego says the company was “glad to join hands with Nike to support their Move to Zero initiative and help create an active play themed playground and bring the Lego play experience to more children,” which is marketdroid speak for We made a playground where kids can finally build something bigger than themselves. The playground is something they can actually use. And it’s something that doesn’t require batteries, screens, or a subscription service. Just imagination, rubber granules from old shoes, and blocks big enough to prove that sometimes the big ideas come from the people small enough to dream them up.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||