Japan has been an Olympic land since Summer Games of 1964. Fifty-six years later, Tokyo will be holding the Summer Olympic Games for the 2nd time, from July 24th to August 9th, 2020. However, much has changed since 1964. Thanks to the fact that most cities end up deeply indebt with dozens of huge, empty venues, the Olympics have lost the halo that buoyed them in past days. 2020 is a chance to reclaim some of that optimism. If any city can buck the bloated, wasteful, and cynical image of the Olympics in recent years, it’s probably Tokyo. This time, the studio sets up a retroactive scenario, designing an Olympic Park with respect to its post-Olympic inhabitation, the afterlife of a short-term event with far-reaching consequences for the city.
By interpreting architecture as natural chaotic systems, the design aims to capture the intuitive, situational, and paradoxical character in Japanese culture, the evanescence and insubstantiality of things, and the transitory nature of the floating world. Unlike traditional Olympic Parks, the project celebrates lightness instead of monumentality, uncertainty instead of rigidity, digital technology and media art instead of sculpture. It can grow to contain all the structures an Olympic Park need. It can also evolve toward an urban campus after the event.
Tsinghua University Spring 2017 Architecture Joint Studio | Tokyo 2020 Olympic Park Design Instructor | Weiguo Xu
