Sports architects are often asked to create athletic temples that will last for decades. The new Olympic Stadium that will be on display in London over the next three weeks was designed with a different future in mind: disassembly.
通常来说，体育馆的建筑师都会被要求设计出能屹立几十年的建筑。然而，将在未来三周成为万众瞩目焦点的伦敦奥运会体育馆的设计理念则恰好相反：这座建筑需要易于拆解。
Hoping to avoid the now familiar trap of building an Olympic Stadium with little future purpose-like Beijing's spectacular Bird's Nest, which these days hosts winter sledding events and not much else-organizers of the 2012 London Games asked sports-architecture firm Populous to design a stadium that could be downsized and remade for a different future use.
2012年伦敦奥运会的主办方不希望奥运场馆在未来成为摆设──比如北京颇为壮观的鸟巢，除了曾经用来主办冬季雪橇赛事之外就基本没派上什么用场，他们要求运动场馆建筑公司Populous设计一座能够“缩身”，并可以改作他用的体育馆。
The result is a stadium with 25,000 seats that are meant to be permanent and 55,000 that can be easily removed after the Games.
按照上述要求设计的伦敦奥运体育馆拥有25,000个永久性座位和55,000个在奥运会结束后可以轻易拆除的座位。
A Poser
难题待解
Rod Sheard, senior principal at Populous, says his firm was intrigued and perplexed by the assignment. 'Philosophically, when we first heard it, we thought, 'That's really good,' ' says Mr. Sheard. 'We'd seen Beijing and seen how you do it when money is no object. Quite clearly London wasn't going to be able to do that.'
Populous首席建筑师谢尔德(Rod Sheard)说，接到这个任务时，公司不知怎么办才好。他说，我们刚听到这个要求时，我们认为它的理念真的很不错。大家都看到了北京的例子，知道了不差钱的话可以达到何种效果，不过伦敦显然不打算采用这种方式。
Architects, however, aren't wired for impermanence. 'We're bred with this attitude that your buildings last for 50 years, and the whole judgment of a building in architectural terms is firmness and delight,' Mr. Sheard says. 'That was the original Greek philosophy.'
然而，设计不耐久的东西并不是建筑师的强项。谢尔德说，建筑的寿命要达到50年，这种理念已经在我们脑子里根深蒂固了，而且从专业的角度讲，评判一个建筑的标准就是它有多坚固、有多美观，这是源自希腊的建筑设计理念。
As a consequence, he says, 'we didn't have the foggiest idea of how you go about it.'
他说，因此，对于该怎么做，我们完全没有头绪。
No Fear
打消顾虑
Populous has built a reputation as one of the pillars of modern sports architecture with prominent projects like the Olympic Stadium in Sydney, a fleet of European soccer pitches including the Arsenal club's Emirates Stadium in London, and U.S. ballparks including the new Yankee Stadium and Camden Yards in Baltimore. But it needed a whole new mind-set for the London job.
Populous设计了许多现代体育场馆，拥有极高的知名度。该公司的作品包括悉尼奥运馆、多个欧洲足球场（如伦敦兵工厂足球俱乐部(Arsenal club)的酋长球场(Emirates Stadium)）以及一些美国棒球场（如新的洋基体育馆(Yankee Stadium)和位于巴尔迪莫的金莺公园(Camden Yards)）。但是，为了完成伦敦交给它的任务，Populous需要一个全新的思路。
'We had to embrace the temporary,' Mr. Sheard says. 'Not be afraid of the temporary. It wasn't a limitation on what we could do, but an opportunity.'
谢尔德说，我们要接受临时性的东西，而不是对临时性的东西心存疑虑，这样并不会给我们能交出什么样的成绩带来限制，相反，这是我们的一个机会。
The temporary aesthetic gave Populous the freedom to 'start thinking about doing the building in a completely different way from anything we'd ever done before, even down to things like materials and colors,' Mr. Sheard says. 'Why do most of our buildings not have a lot of color in them? It's because UV light decimates colors. Architects shy away from colors because within five years they look like a faded version of what they were.' Freed from that concern, Populous could use a broader palette for the stadium.
谢尔德说，由于建筑是临时性的，Populous可以借这个机会思考如何用与以往完全不同的方式进行设计，甚至具体到材料和颜色的选择。他说，为什么我们的建筑上没有多种颜色？因为紫外线会让建筑褪色，建筑师们不愿使用色彩，因为不出五年，颜色就会变淡。由于没有这种顾虑，Populous在设计体育馆时可以使用更多色彩。
It also could save money by using 'fabrics that have a very short life span and are very reasonably priced,' says Mr. Sheard. Additional money was saved by putting fewer permanent concession stands inside the stadium and instead relying on temporary facilities just outside the building.
通过使用寿命短但价格合理的建筑材料，还可以在建造过程中节约成本。减少体育馆内的永久特许摊位，转而依赖建筑外的临时设施，这也能省下一些钱。
A Weighty Debate
有关重量的争论
The stadium also contains a fraction of the steel used by its Beijing counterpart, making it lighter than any previous main Olympic stadium, according to Mr. Sheard.
谢尔德说，这座体育馆的建筑材料中还包括北京曾经使用过的那种钢材，这使得这座建筑比以往任何主要的奥运体育馆都更轻。
The debate over whether all these innovations add up to lightweight architecture surely will outlive the building's original form, if not its very existence.
即使这座建筑最初的形态已经不存在了，甚至整个建筑完全不存在了，有关这些创新设计是否让建筑的重量减轻的争论也会继续下去。
'The Olympic Stadium here is an almost obvious, in-your-face example of a building that doesn't need to be there forever,' Mr. Sheard says. 'Some people say, 'This isn't even a real building. It's not an icon.' And other people are saying it's a new kind of icon, a 21st-century icon.'
谢尔德说，这里奥运体育馆明摆着就是不需要永久存在的建筑；有些人说，这甚至不是一座真正意义上的建筑，不是一个标志性建筑；还有一些人说，它是一种新的具有标志性的东西，21世纪的标志。
Icon or not, the stadium has an uncertain future. The process of choosing a post-Olympic tenant and a new configuration for the building has been bogged down by an extended and sometimes controversial bidding process.
无论是否具有标志意义，体育馆的未来都充满了不确定性。为了在奥运结束后为奥运体育馆找到使用者和外形结构，英国不得不进行旷日持久、有时甚至引发争议的招标。
Four bidders are currently vying to take control of the stadium, including two soccer teams, a soccer college and a company that would stage Formula One auto races in the stadium and on surrounding roadways. A winner will be picked in the fall.
目前有四个竞标方在竞争这座体育馆的所有权，其中包括两支足球队，一所足球学校，以及一家将在体育馆和周围公路上举办一级方程式汽车赛的公司。招标结果将于今年秋季揭晓。