TEMPORARY TOKYO

Temporary Tokyo By Jasper Poels

This summer the Olympic games should have taken place in Tokyo, Japan. Unfortunately, this will not happen due to the global pandemic outbreak, causing a one year delay on the event. For this event, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government decided to use a total of 43 venues, of which 8 are newly built permanent stadiums, 25 already exist and 10 will be temporary. Such a large amount of newly built and temporary venues does not only support the sports industry, but also touches the built environment. This many venues require a lot of building investments and costs, which in the end needs to be collected again in revenues to prevent a great monetary loss for both the city of Tokyo and for the country of Japan. In this article a further look is taken into these new and temporary venues, to see in what way these structures will function after the Olympics in order to make sure that the made investments will not be regarded as a failure.

Of all eight newly built stadiums, the new Tokyo Olympic Stadium is by far the most expensive and largest investment made for the tournament, with a total building cost of approximately 1.3 billion Euros. The total predicted cost of the tournament organization was set at approximately 6.7 billion, but is now considered to be almost quadrupled to a cost of almost 24 billion Euros. These large scale investments are not unique for the host of this event. For example, the Beijing Olympic Games’ price tag was first set at 18 billion Euros, which in the end grew to an amount of 41 billion! The revenues, which still need to be made, most likely will not cover a substantial part of the total costs. This is partly due to the fact that for the revenues expectation, the original cost prediction was used to check for a profitable event.

The remaining parts of the costs are not covered by direct income due to the event, but must be covered afterwards. It is, not unquestionably, argued that this event will boost the economics of the hosting city due to the creation of jobs, the attraction of tourists and by boosting the economic output. Therefore, further exploitation of the buildings after the event is essential for the viability of the investments. So let’s take a look at the exploitation plans of the new stadiums, while checking out what the ‘temporary venues’ actually mean for the city of Tokyo.

First we will take a look at the temporary venues. These venues consists of three types of structures. First there are structures for outdoor events, such as beach volleyball and road cycling. These sports will be held in the open air, for which temporary tribunes will be placed for the visitors. Secondly there are existing buildings, where temporary stands will be placed within. This has for example been done at the Makuhari Messe Hall, a massive convention center which will be transformed for numerous sports, such as fencing, taekwondo and wrestling. The final type of venue is rather an odd one, since it consists of a completely newly built structure. The Ariake Olympic Gymnastic center will function as the home of artistic, trampoline and rhythmic gymnastics, as well for boccia during the Paralympics. It will offer seating capacity to 12.000 visitors and is built in the traditional Japanese building style, where timber is the primary material. In this building, sustainability is an important feature and can be found back in two essential characteristics of the design. First, this has been done by the different functions of the building over its duration of use. During the event, it will be used as a sports plaza, after which it will be used as a tourist attraction for a numerous amount of years, when finally it will be finally destructed, making it a true temporary building. This final destination of the building has something to do with the second sustainable point of interest. In this building, no steel structures have been used, as timber is the foremost construction material. This timber will come from two Japanese prefectures, reducing the carbon footprint during the construction process. After the destruction, these timber elements will be returned to their original prefectures, leading to a minimal waste of building materials.

Secondly, there are large scale investments in structures, which will not be demolished after the Olympic Games. These structures are significantly larger than the mentioned temporary venues, and are therefore also more expensive. In the past, there are examples of such large scale investments to be neglected after the games, leading to abandoned stadiums with a huge financial, and perhaps cultural loss. Examples of these type of abandoned Olympic structures can be found in Rio de Janeiro, Sarajevo and Athens. Reasons for these examples of disastrous abandonment are various and include reasons such as the Yugoslavian civil war, the financial crisis in Greece and simply by a lack of purpose for these venues. Not using the venues can in itself be caused by various reasons such as the privatization of the ground, the lack of funds to clear the area after the games, the unsafety of the building’s construction, as has been the case in Rio, and by lack of needing the venues in the first place. Therefore, the usage of the buildings must be clearly thought of prior to the construction of the Japanese venues, especially since sustainability is regarded as a major pillar. Such reuse of venues has for example been done at the Sydney Olympic Park, which after the games of 2000 has been used for concerts, sports and business conferences.

Since Olympic venues will often have a ‘temporary function’ during the games, it is important to look at how the venues will function in the future. For each of the newly built stadiums and the Olympic village in Tokyo, hard plans have been made to accommodate the shift in function. The Olympic village for example will be renovated to be sold as apartments to the residents of Tokyo. Most major stadiums such as the Musashino Forest Sport Plaza and the Olympic Stadium of Japan will be used as a new venue of sporting, arts and cultural events. This has for example already been proven by hosting the Japan Open Tennis Championship in 2018. Another, last option for these new venues is to open them to the public. This has for example been proposed for the Sea Forest Waterway, Kasei Canoe Slalom Centre and the Tokyo Aquatics center, which will all function as a public recreation area after the games.

But could the mentioned secondary functions actually be put into practice? It was already established that such failures exist due to lack of funds, cultural conflicts and the underuse of the

sites. Cultural conflicts are deemed unlikely, while the other two could be serious factors. Even though Japan hosts the third largest economy in the world, the fourth largest export market in the world and has close economic ties with all the great economic markets, a lack of funds or economic crisis is on the table due to the recent COVID-19 virus outbreak. This may result in an economic crisis in Japan, leading to the abandonment of such sports centers. This abandonment is however doubtful, due to the unlikeliness of poor usage of the venues. Poor usage of venues is most likely the result of two reasons: either the venue is poorly accessible to the large crowd due to its geographical position with poor transportation hubs, or the governing bodies of sports simply make it unattractive to go there, because no great events are organized. The geographical position is no problem for Tokyo, since all newly built venues are located near the Tokyo Bay or in the international Shibuya district. All of these venues are located in the proximity of well-connected transportation hubs, lots of people and cultural landmarks, such as the Tokyo Tower, Meiji Shrine and Imperial Palace Grounds. Because of this great accessibility, presence of people and proximity to touristic places, governmental bodies would be ignorant not to use these venues for prestigious, (inter) national events.

The Tokyo committee has put the concept of sustainability high atop the list, and it shows. The use of existing, temporary and newly built venues has been balanced well, strengthening the quality of their Olympic proposal. The built of temporary guest stands and the destruction of the Ariake Olympic Gymnastic Center does not only reduce the ecological footprint, but it also reduces the made costs for the event as the construction costs will be lower, while the used materials can be either sold or reused after destruction. Besides these ‘true temporary’ structures, the committee also thought of the reuse of the newly built Olympic venues. Opening venues to the public, organizing new, grand sports events in them and repurposing the Olympic village into housing leads to a more sustainable, profitable and economical lifespan of the structures. But in order for the investments to become successful, the transformation of the ‘temporary functions’ into new function requires more input. Both Tokyo and Japan as a whole, must remain free of conflict, be economically stable and organize grand events to realize a successful transformation. Predicting the outcome of this transformation is difficult, but it is expected that the city of Tokyo has made the right choice by organizing and investing in this international event. s difficult, but it is expected that the city of Tokyo has made the right choice by organizing and investing in this international event.

Images: 1. Athletics track (image: Joep Dirx) Sources: 1. Bureau of Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 1 Preparation. 2020. Competition Venue. 2020games.metro.tokyo.lg.jp 2. Business Insider. 2020. What abandoned Olympic venues from around the world look like today. Businessinsider.nl 3. Council on foreign relations. 2018. The Economics of Hosting the Olympic Games. Cfr.org 4. Japan Inside. 2020. Why is Japan so rich?? Japaninsides.com 5. Sportscasting. 2019. What Happens to Old Olympic Venues After the Games? Sportscasting.com 6. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2020. Inside Tokyo’s Olympic stadiums we may have to wait a while to see. Smh.com 7. Tokyo 2020. 2019. Showcasing true Japanese craftsmanship at Ariake Gymnastics Centree.Tokyo2020.org