Reasons to be optimistic.

Continuing with the Olympic flavour of my recent blogs, and my recent visit to the park, well the fence outside the park and the viewing gallery in John Lewis’. I have been watching for signs of what is going to happen next. Three sporting events that I know about on the back of London hosting the 2012 games are: Rowing World Championships at Eton Dorney in 2013, World Athletics Championships at Stratford in 2014 and the Rugby World Cup in 2015, probably centred on Twickenham, but the Olympic Stadium is listed as a potential venue, exciting times ahead. I have been watching a series of documentaries by the Landscape Institute who are holding up what is now known as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as an exemplar of what can be achieved in terms of sustainable design and when environmental impact is leading as opposed to cost cutting and so they should! This should set the benchmark for masterplanning of large projects in the future, and demonstrates what can be achieved when designers take the lead.

This has also been a big week on the world stage, America have voted Barrack Obama in for a second term, which in my view was the only sensible decision, although like others I was worried for a while. Watching the news from a vantage point in the Middle East during the campaign it was obvious that Obama has earned the respect of the global community. What I found significant in the result is the demographics, and people in the media talking in terms of two Americas: states with the main cities and industrial areas voted Obama whilst the deep south voted Romney and it is no secret that the most diverse populations live in the cities. In terms of architecture with the trend towards growing cities becoming more dense and diverse in the future the notion of looking after the wealthy i.e: Corporate America is no longer valid, just my view that is all.

In Saudi Arabia, a royal degree has been published to commit to moving away from powering the Kingdom on fossil fuels, investing heavily in solar power, there is no set time frame but I am interested to see how it develops. In contrast there is more news from Amazonwatch, who are following the story of the indigenous populations that will be displaced if the Belo Monte Dam project goes ahead, in addition this involves clearing vast areas of rainforest that the planet needs to continue convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, which raises a question for me, is hydro electric power sustainable? In this context it is a resounding no! There are far more effective ways to generate power, in-stream turbines, wind, solar...energy wastage in cities is a huge contributor to the need for more power. As architects we do not have all the answers, but we are very good at assembling the best teams of experts so that we can find them, it just needs clients, corporations and governments to trust us, I guess that is the tricky bit. Just to finish on the Olympic thread, with Rio host city for 2016 the eyes of the world are on them, and the time to make the right decision is now.