This adaptable handball arena proposal would re-house thousands of displaced people after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Student John Tapia-Owens designed the structure as his graduation thesis project at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff, and envisioned it as a sporting facility that could be repurposed as a housing solution for those in need.
Cities that hosted the Olympic Games in the past have been facing a chronic problem relating to empty stadiums and high maintenance fees for structures built exclusively for the Games. In order to avoid a similar scenario, Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor Eudardo Paes has announced plans to dismantle one of the Olympic arenas as use the materials to built schools. John A Tapia-Owens’ proposal is an attempt to circumvent this issue entirely and build stadiums and arenas with their alternative uses in mind.
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The project analyses the needs and cultures of the favela communities, their way of life and housing solutions that operate through spontaneous aggregation of housing units. This uniqueness of each individual unit is at the core of the project which can also serve as a replicable prototype.
