Last week we looked at the Athlete’s Village at the Paris Olympics, 100 years apart. Two key issues in the 2024 edition are the drive for innovation and the post-Olympic use.

This week we turn those two spotlights on the three O’Villages in Australia: Melbourne in 1956 (a bit disappointing), Sydney in 2000 (a missed opportunity), and Brisbane in 2032 (what can we learn?).

Melbourne 1956 Olympic Village

The Melbourne O’Village was in West Heidelberg, between Southern, Oriel, Dougherty Roads and Liberty Parade. The innovation was to dispense with the ‘barracks’ used in earlier O’Villages, but rather build 841 suburban houses (post war Australia through and through). Built to house some 5000 athletes, it had shops, a restaurant and recreation hall, and large temporary buildings, with dining rooms, saunas and a bank.

The houses were rushed in construction and modestly built, and the Housing Commission bought 600 of them, with the remaining being sold privately. As could have been predicted by putting so many low SES people in one area, West Heidelberg became known for its poverty, strained social relations, petty crime and poor maintenance.

The government tried to alleviate the issues by building a sports centre, a primary school, shopping strip, and a community health centre with a legal service and registered training organisation. In 1995 the State Government and Banyule City Council initiated an Urban Renewal and Revitalisation program, which transformed many houses that had fallen into disrepair (see here).

Nevertheless, a key lesson, learnt so slowly in the post war, was that social housing must be dispersed, diverse, indistinguishable, durable and divested (see ToT 208 here). None of which was evidenced at West Heidelberg, despite some rose-coloured glasses being applied in a book on the scheme (Nation with nation: the story of Olympic Village Heidelberg, Olympic Games Melbourne 1956, by Geoffrey Ballard, published in 1997).

Sydney 2000 Olympic Village

The story of the 2000 Olympics generally, and the O’Village in particular, can be summed up in the memorable phrase from columnist Anne Susskind: “going for bronze”. As I had written in an earlier ToT, it lamented the lack of vision and creativity in the architecture.

Twelve years later, Metropolis magazine used the same headline for an article on the London Olympics’ buildings. Both articles found their cities’ respective Olympics design to be mundane, ordinary and dull: third rate. Why the disappointment? Because the Olympics offers a rare chance to build the exceptional, the monumental and experimental: the pinnacle of architectural design.

Sydney 2000 had the opportunity to add to these delights, but as Susskind so cuttingly points out, we squibbed it, identifying the only bright spot as the public toilets (by Durbach Block). How apposite that the design of some dinkum dunnies was our nation’s high point.

Nowhere is this design disappointment was more manifest than in the Sydney’s O’Village. Originally an open design competition, there were five shortlisted designs, combined by their authors to produce a most urbane plan centred on an interactive public spine street. That in itself is a testament to ideas: that five differing views could coalesce into a singular vision.

I was an entrant to that competition, together with several University of Sydney students. Reputedly our entry was one of the last removed from contention before the five winners were announced. Only for us to discover that our entry very closely resembled the final amalgamated scheme. A vindication of sorts. But that was 30 years ago, let’s move on.

The euphoria of a winning scheme didn’t last long. Hesitancy at innovation, and a fear of failing to deliver, overtook the organisers (ah, project managers you see) and a ‘design-construct’ contract was awarded to the ‘safe hands’ of Lend Lease / Mirvac.

Delivery was favoured over design; corporate over creativity; and the result was barely indistinguishable from a modest suburban masterplan with project homes. A ‘Homeworld’ for the world’s athletes to call home, saved only by the stepped white modernist apartments by Bruce Eeles.

The starting possibilities in 1993 seemed boundless and endless, but what was actually produced on the ground was palpably disappointing. We did 1956 all over again. Bronze is being kind.

Brisbane 2032 Olympic Village

We now look to the possibilities for the Olympic Village in Brisbane. The early steps look good: taking over an industrial area of sheds and car parks on the Brisbane River at Hamilton. A $87 million contract has been let for the first phase of the precinct, which includes a ‘Street Renewal Program’ that will see new roads built and MacArthur Ave upgraded to a boulevard.

Last week news outlets trumpeted that the Queensland government had revealed the proposed design for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic village, with CGIs showing ‘tree-lined streets with a backdrop of multiple high-rise unit buildings at Hamilton’s riverfront Northshore area’. Let’s hope that is not the case.

The only difference from the first images released three years ago is the stock dreary cubes are now festooned with greenery all over, to dress them up as sustainable. The very worst of green-papering. This from the town that gave us tropical delights from Russell Hall, John Mainwaring, Gabriel Poole, Donovan Hill and the Clares. C’mon Aussie c’mon, we can do better than blokey blocks covered with wisteria.

How about a competition to design each of the individual buildings on the sites created by the gridded streets. Similar to the competitions envisaged by the winners of the Barangaroo masterplan - another competition that got fritzed and given to Lend Lease in the name of efficiency.

We have an average legacy to overcome.

Title image: The most recently released (2 August) of the proposed Brisbane Olympic Village. Image by Queensland Government.

Next week: Where to go to see lots of good architecture.

This is Tone on Tuesday #223, 6 August 2024. Researched and written by Tone Wheeler, architect / Adjunct Prof UNSW / President AAA. The views expressed are his. Past Tone on Tuesday columns can be found here. You can contact TW at toneontuesday@gmail.com

Tone Wheeler

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