Adidas reveals Team GB kit for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

British athletes will wear kits in the colours of the Union Jack, designed by sportswear brand Adidas in collaboration with Parley for the Ocean, at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

The uniform, which comes in red, white, blue and navy colours is insulated with environmental organisation Parley for the Ocean's recycled marine plastic.

It is comprised of four "key" pieces for Olympic athletes, including a puffer jacket, a pair of women's trainers, leggings and a lighter jacket for layering.

All of the garments feature a colour-blocking design, with the Union Jack flag appearing on the chest of the jackets and the leggings emblazoned with the letters GBR in white.

Top: Adidas designed the rain puffer jacket for Team GB. Above: the uniform will be worn at the Winter Olympics

The kit is designed to keep athletes comfortable yet warm with pieces made from thermal insulation material by PrimaLoft and Parley Ocean Plastic.

The Terrex Myselter rain puffer jacket is insulated with 100 per cent recycled plastic. Around 40 per cent of this is plastic that has been intercepted from coastal communities and shorelines by Parley for the Oceans.

The jacket is designed for breathability, thermal efficiency and to dry quickly, allowing for maximum performance.

The four key items come in red, white and blue blocks of colour

According to the brand, the lighter zip-up jacket is made from a fleece material that sheds fewer microfibres than traditional fleece.

It also incorporates the same technology found in Adidas's Cold.Rdy collection, which is designed to insulate the body in cold weather.

Team GB's female athletes will wear Ultraboost 22 trainers – a running shoe that the German brand recently released specifically for women's feet.

Read:

Nike reveals uniforms for Tokyo 2020 Olympics

The brand believes that the kit "represents boldness and celebration" and hope that it will help the team perform to the best of its ability.

"We always strive to create high-performance products with creative design – which is reflected in the new Team GB and Paralympic GB kits," said Adidas.

"The kit fuses a contemporary representation of the Union flag with colour blocking design that represents boldness and celebration," the brand continued.

Recycled fibres in the clothes keep athletes warm

The Winter Olympics is set to take place 4 February to 20 February this year.

Previous Team GB uniforms include a kit by designer Ben Sherman that draws on the sportswear worn at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Games and a Stella McCartney-designed kit that features a coat of arms.

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Populous completes Ice Ribbon arena for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Architecture firm Populous has unveiled the National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the Ice Ribbon, the only new building created for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Boasting a facade formed of 22 giant, illuminated ribbons, the 12,000-seat arena is expected to become a focal point of the games, which start next week. Its 400-metre race track will be the venue for all speed skating events.

The Ice Ribbon will host speed skating events at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

International firm Populous – whose previous buildings include the London Olympic Stadium and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – based its design on a children's game played in Beijing.

Tiric Chang, principal of Populous China, recalled the game involving high-speed spinning "ice top", which he played with friends in the Shichahai Park ice rink.

The facade is wrapped by 22 ribbons that can be illuminated

"The traditional ice game in old Beijing involved a high-speed spinning and leaping ice top that seemed to have infinite energy and possibilities," he said.

"That's what I thought of when reflecting on the characteristics of Olympic speed skating. So, the ice tops became part of the design inspiration injecting a strong Chinese memory into the venue."

The design is based on a spinning ice top

This developed into a design involving 22 huge light strands, which flow around the oval-shaped stadium to create the impression of fast motion.

The shape of these ribbons is based on another of Chang's childhood memories.

Read:

Sochi Winter Olympics commence inside Populous-designed stadium

"The ribbons of the design make reference to the floating silk ribbons of the artwork my family had dedicated their time to – which was the study and preservation of the Dunhuang Grottoes, a significant collection of Buddhist art from the Tang dynasty," he said.

The ribbons create a 33.8-metre-high cocoon around the arena, designed to create a more immersive experience for spectators. They can be programmed with dynamic lighting, which will bring the facade to life at night.

The Ice Ribbon is located in the Beijing Olympic Park

With Beijing becoming the first city in history to host both a summer and winter Olympics, the Ice Ribbon has been built in the existing Beijing Olympic Park.

It sits alongside Herzog & de Meuron's National Stadium and the National Aquatics Centre by PTW Architects – better known as the Bird's Nest and the Watercube – which will both be back in use for this year's games.

The venue contains 8,000 permanent seats and 4,000 temporary seats

State-of-the-art technology features in the Ice Ribbo, in order to optimise its performance and reduce its environmental impact.

It will be one of the first venues in the world to feature an ice surface created using carbon dioxide transcritical direct cooling, making it more energy-efficient than a traditional rink.

The ice surface uses a pioneering technology

This system makes it possible to achieve a temperature difference of less 0.5 degrees Celsius across the surface, which results in a faster and stronger track.

Seating and acoustics have also been carefully designed, to ensure the movement and sound of the speed skating blades can be seen and heard from every seat.

The Ice Ribbon is the only permanent new venue at the Beijing 2022 games

Populous won a competition to design the National Speed Skating Oval (NSSO) in 2016.

The firm then developed the schematic design in just 12 weeks, to allow construction to begin on schedule. It involved collaboration between Populous staff from all around the world.

"The winning design for the Ice Ribbon was created in an intense time frame and was forged through several concepts and many iterations to develop a spinning concept into its final form," said senior principal Andrew James.

The building is located alongside the Bird's Nest stadium

"It became a global effort with our team in Beijing, Brisbane, India, London and America drawing on our experience from Oval Lingotto in Turin, Italy, and our design of Fisht Stadium in Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games," he added.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics take place from 4 to 20 February.

Populous has designed numerous venues for the Olympics. As well as the Fisht Stadium for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, the studio created the  London 2012 Olympic stadium.It is currently designing the masterplan for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

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Powerhouse Company creates serene mass-timber lecture hall for Tilburg University

Dutch studio Powerhouse Company has created the Netherlands' first mass-timber university building — a square lecture hall that references modernist and monastic architecture.

The three-storey Tilburg University Lecture Hall, located in Tilburg in southern Holland, has a footprint of just 33 by 33 metres.

The square-shaped building was designed with a circular and sustainable approach and constructed using demountable and recyclable building components.

Powerhouse Company looked to the campus's surrounding modernist buildings for inspiration for the design – in particular its first structure, Jos Bedaux' 1962 Cobbenhagen building, a limestone building with an inner courtyard that was informed by medieval monastic gardens.

Powerhouse Company designed the Tilburg University Lecture Hall to reference the surrounding modernist buildings

The architects created a formal link to these buildings through the lecture hall's limestone facade and rhythmic window placement, while endeavouring to create a calm atmosphere and connection to nature in the interior.

Powerhouse Company described it as a building that "appears as though it has always been there".

"The lecture hall is a timeless and sustainable addition to the campus architecture of Tilburg University," said Powerhouse Company partner architect Stefan Prins. "It breathes the atmosphere of the library and the monastery."

The main lecture hall was designed to be lofty and sculptural

The Tilburg University Lecture Hall has a hybrid structure made largely of cross-laminated timber (CLT), with a concrete core and steel trusses.

The building's 4.6 kilometres of timber beams and three metres of steel trusses were assembled using a dry construction method in order to be demountable for future use. Similarly, the limestone facade panels have been hung, rather than glued, so they can be recycled.

Inside, there are a mix of 14 lecture rooms, study areas and a foyer. The spaces range from a main hall described as "lofty" and "sculptural" to cosy window nooks and solemn work benches dotted with cruciform reading lamps.

Curved details are meant to bring an ambiance of warmth and comfort

The largest lecture hall was a particular focus of attention for the architects, who created wooden rib floors spanning nine metres to give the room the desired acoustic performance and avoid high beams.

This room also features curved finishes and fixtures, and a glass facade giving views onto the forest.

Read:

The Dezeen guide to mass timber in architecture

"Our details look simple and self-evident, but pioneering the technical junctions in collaboration with different disciplines was a challenge," said Powerhouse Company BIM Engineer Romano van den Dool.

"This untrodden road was inspiring and taught us a lot."

Throughout the 5,000-square-metre space, wooden furniture forms an intrinsic part of the design and an extension of the timber structure.

The building's simple wooden furniture is intrinsic to the design

The architects wanted the natural palette and clean lines to create an ambiance of serenity and calm, while using varied window placements to frame a range of views of the outside world.

These include glimpses of the sky, a single tree and views of people walking to campus.

From the outside, the building has four different facades, each with different detailing and window spacing, and each responding to the different features on that side of the campus.

The building houses a mixture of lecture halls, study areas and quiet nooks

One side faces forest, one side parkland, another accommodation, and the last looks onto the main route to the nearby train station.

The building is energy-neutral, with its flat rooftop providing ample room for solar panels. Powerhouse Company used parametric design to optimise the photovoltaic array, which provides enough energy to surpass the building's needs.

Other design features reduce the building's energy consumption, such as cooling with outside air and an aquifer system that uses heat stored in the summer to warm the building during the winter.

The placement of the windows varies throughout the building

"Together with our client, we upped our ambition during the design process, resulting in a carbon-neutral, completely circular, and BREEAM Outstanding design," said Powerhouse Company associate architect Janneke van der Velden.

Powerhouse Company is a Rotterdam-based practice founded in 2005. Its recent projects have included a building in China topped with a circular walking trail and a carbon-neutral and "climate-resilient" floating office on the Maas River in Rotterdam.

The photography is by Frans Parthesius.

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Berlin citizens propose law to ban cars from city centre

Berlin's centre could become the largest car-free urban area in the world following a campaign supported by 50,000 citizens.

Campaign group Berlin Autofrei has proposed a law to limit private car use within the Ringbahn train line in the German capital, an area of 34 square miles.

The city government will now formally consider the petition, with a decision due to be announced in February.

If successful, the law would limit vehicle use to those with special exemptions, such as delivery vehicles, emergency services or people with disabilities.

The plans would restrict private cars within the Ringbahn

Residents would only be permitted to use a car or van up to 12 times a year, for special circumstances such as moving house.

Public transport networks would be expanded, and roads would be redesigned to increase space for pedestrians and cyclists.

Proposed law aims to reduce carbon footprint

The ambition is to reduce the number of road accidents, improve air quality and reduce the city's carbon footprint.

"Our law improves the quality of life for all Berliners," said Nina Noblé, one of the campaign organisers, in a statement released in 2021.

Street would be redesigned to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists

"We want people to be able to sleep with their windows open and children to be able to play in the street again," she said.

"Especially children and senior citizens are endangered by cars. Also, grandparents should be able to ride their bicycles safely and have plenty of benches to take a breather on."

Campaign received more than double the signatures needed

The campaign has been building momentum since the submission of the draft law in February 2021.

Campaigners needed 20,000 signatures to formally begin the legal process, but were able to gather 50,333. If the city rejects their proposal, they will need to increase the number to 175,000.

If the city refuses at that stage, the proposal will go to a public vote.

The move is proposed by campaign group Berlin Autofrei

A similar campaign was successful in Berlin in 2018. Following a citizen referendum, the city passed a mobility law mandating the rollout of a city-wide cycling network.

Berlin Autofrei's organisers believe that more needs to be done to improve quality of the life for the city's residents.

Their proposed law includes electric as well as petrol vehicles, on the grounds that they still create pollution and cause accidents.

Read:

Milan to build Cambio network of "super-cycle corridors" linking 80 per cent of the city

While the city has not published a cost figure for the plans, the campaigners estimate they will save the city €420 million, or £350 million, every year.

"The Senate has no meaningful transformation plan towards sustainable and equitable transport," said Manuel Wiemann, another of the organisers.

"E-buses and a few kilometres of bike lanes in five years are simply not enough," he said. "There are too many cars on the road in Berlin polluting the air through tyre wear, occupying far too much common space and unnecessarily endangering human lives, whether electric or diesel."

The proposal has gathered more than 50,000 supporters

Berlin is not the only city exploring the possibility of car-free streets.

Oslo has been slowly removing cars from its city centre since 2017, Barcelona is pedestrianising every third street in its Eixample district, and Paris hosts regular car-free days.

The pandemic has led even more cities, including London, New York and Milan, to test the impact of turning roads into pedestrian zones.

Berlin Autofrei's proposals follow a 2014 report commissioned by the city, which found that 58 per cent of Berlin's streets are dominated by traffic, even though cars only account for one in three journeys.

The photography is courtesy of Berlin Autofrei. Main image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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KWY.studio designs "whimsical" marble play sculptures in Denmark

Portuguese practice KWY.studio worked with artist studio Superflex and local schoolchildren to create this series of five pink marble play sculptures in Billund, Denmark.

Named Play Contract, the structures were designed to be "informed by children's thoughts about play".

Created for Danish organisation Capital of Children, each of the five small marble structures incorporates covered areas, steps and pathways to reframe how both adults and children interact with the surrounding landscape.

KWY.studio has built marble sculptures in a park in Billund

"Most [playgrounds] are designed and built based on grown-ups' notions of children and how they should behave," explained KWY.studio.

"With Play Contract, the balance of power is tipped, and now it's the children's turn to devise a playful space for themselves and grown-ups," it continued.

"What kinds of play equipment should be in such a playground? What kind of playground would they like to have when they grow up?

The sculptures are based on designs made by schoolchildren

The play structures were devised at a workshop where 122 schoolchildren used pink Lego bricks to create models.

These models were then analysed to determine a range of forms, such as gate, amphitheatre and tower, along with a series of proposed uses, such as climb, swing, sit, slide and jump, which informed the final designs.

Children are encouraged to climb and play on the sculptures

"The process was to generate a unique result from the children's models while retaining everyone's ideas," said the practice.

"All models were carefully traced, and multiple combinations were layered and intersected into new configurations."

"At the end it is as if every model of every child is there composing a city, of which parts have been carefully uncovered for what is to be a new everlasting future," it continued.

Read:

Minimalist animal sculptures by Luca Boscardin form children's playground equipment

The studio built the five structures from pink marble in order achieve a feeling of "timelessness", which was intended to evoke a sense of curiosity around who designed the structures and why.

"Visits to quarries and workshops informed how the material was to be used, retaining both natural traces as well as man-made processing imperfections," said the studio.

"Finishes were kept to a minimum while much of the history of each of these large, impressive rock blocks was preserved."

Pink marble was used for its timeless qualities

Other recent designs for playground and play scapes include a playground in Amsterdam with minimalist animal sculptures by toy designer Luca Boscardin, and a playground in New York that features repurposed concrete wave breakers painted sky blue.

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