黑洞社区

Using up leftovers

The athletes and journalists may have left Sochi following the close of the Winter Olympic Games last Sunday, but what happens now to the dazzling venues and infrastructure that made the most expensive Olympics ever a reality? Russia invested $51bn (拢31bn) to enable the remote ski resort in southern Russia to host the Games, topping even Beijing鈥檚 estimated $40bn (拢24bn) for the 2008 summer Games. The area is now home to more than 40,000 hotel rooms, four ski resorts, dozens of restaurants and retailers, five sports arenas, one stadium, and enough roads and railways to handle 20,000 visitors an hour. The Russian government first talked about making Sochi a kind of capital of southern Russia, then about dismantling the arenas and taking them north, then reports surfaced in December that prime minister Dmitry Medvedev had proposed turning it into a casino zone 鈥� a proposal subsequently denied by the Kremlin. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think anyone is sure what to do with it,鈥� Sufian Zhemukhov, co-author of a coming book on the Sochi Games, told the New York Times plaintively.

Queueing for the bus

As flooding continues to blight south-west England, one of the consequences is that it鈥檚 open season for construction consultants - particularly engineers - wanting to get on the news to talk about ways to prevent flooding, or mitigate damage to properties in flood plains. As flooding gripped the Somerset Levels, the BBC put on a permanent bus to travel around the area, picking up journalists and pundits as it went along to produce rolling television and radio reports on the crisis. I hear one engineering consultant, who鈥檚 been a regular passenger on the vehicle, has dubbed it the 鈥減arty bus鈥�, I presume, ironically.

Mind your head

The World Wildlife Fund鈥檚 headquarters, which proved a fabulous venue for our cover shot this week, is a great project and with all its exposed wood is a fitting habitat for the panda-logoed charity. But even the best projects don鈥檛 come together without the odd hitch. My reporter, a chap of middling height, was nearly knocked unconscious while fetching a glass of water in the kitchen because the overhead cabinets have been fixed alarmingly low - and he hardly has the physique of an NBA star. I understand a refit to fix the problem is imminent. Perhaps they were expecting real pandas to work there, who are too small to reach the top cabinets.

Typically productive Friday afternoon

As construction鈥檚 working week draws to a close, many amongst us turn to Twitter to while away a few idle moments on a Friday. Last Friday an amusing hashtag sprang up proffering potential #constructionmusicals. Among them 鈥淎 hard (hat) day鈥檚 night鈥� and 鈥淲est Side Storey鈥� (Sarah Fox, @500wordlawyer) 鈥淭he Rockwool Horror Picture Show鈥� (Tom Oulton, @itsBIMupNorth), 鈥淟es Hi-Viserables鈥� (Stephen Malley, @BrickLawyer) and 鈥淐hitty Chitty BIM BIM鈥� (David Philp, @ThePhilpster). I don鈥檛 know whether to applaud or grind my teeth. There鈥檚 talk on Twitter that it鈥檒l be #constructioncops puns this Friday. You have been warned 鈥�