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Rio Olympic Village deemed "uninhabitable" by Australian delegation

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shintoki

sparkle this bitch
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Is this real? OMG. LOL
 

mantidor

Member
Can't figure out if that's worse if it's facetious or if he's sincere.

Well cariocas are very informal and very little political correctness :p

His actual statement was more on the lines of "I'm very concerned about this situation and we are sending everyone there to fix it. I'll even bring a kangaroo if needed to make the Australian team feel at home".

Is probably why the Australian team response was on the same lines, and they weren't really offended, they answered "careful with them, they punch".
 

RBH

Member
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According to The Guardian, 19 of the 31 apartment towers (all of which are 17 stories tall) that comprise the Olympic Village in Rio have not passed safety tests.

Stress tests were never completed on most of the buildings because of delays in the connection of gas and electric lines. An Olympics spokesperson tried to claim only five percent of the rooms were impacted; she later admitted that less than half of towers have been approved for occupation. In the meantime, the teams that have arrived are seeking other accommodations, and may ask to be reimbursed for their trouble:

The organisers promise to resolve the problems by Thursday, but in the interim the Australian team has decided to temporarily rehouse its athletes. The Dutch and Italian teams have also complained and hinted that there may be demands for compensation.

The towers cost a shade under $1 billion to construct, and the construction firm planned to sell the apartments after the Olympics concluded. However, the Brazilian economy is in the toilet (the Brazilian real has fallen 20 percent over the last year), and less than 10 percent of the apartments have been successfully pre-sold.

The Italian team has come up with a rather creative solution to their uncompleted rooms, and have contracted out workers on their own to finish up construction.
http://deadspin.com/only-19-of-the-31-olympics-athletes-village-buildings-h-1784288452
 

RBH

Member
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Diego Gusman, an Argentinian Olympics official in Rio, told La Nacion that he believes the rooms his athletes are staying in have been sabotaged. According to La Nacion, it is the state of the plumbing that has arched Gusman’s brow (via Google Translate):

“There were water leaks in the walls, ceiling were things done on the run and with poor quality materials, but we also believe that there was some sabotage because how do you explain if that would cement blocks within the plumbing? it’s a mess and failures are repeated throughout the Villa.”

La Nacion also reports that Gusman has reserved some housing outside of the village for his athletes to stay in, should their current accommodations not be fixed up in time for the games.
http://deadspin.com/argentinian-olympics-official-alleges-sabotage-in-athle-1784313096
 
Who in the world thought it was a good idea to build this monstrosity for a billion dollars that look like Soviet bloc housing?
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
I wish we could skip to Tokyo Olympics.

Tokyo is in the middle of not building most of what they were planning on building.

So, we'll see.

That said, the general infrastructure in Tokyo is fucking aces, it's safe as fuck other than the grifters in the red light districts and hopefully has enough venues to just say go with minimal work being put in.
 

Luschient

Member
The Italian team has come up with a rather creative solution to their uncompleted rooms, and have contracted out workers on their own to finish up construction.

I'd be more worried about the smell of gas and exposed wiring, unless the contractors will be fixing that too.

Also, obligatory Italian coming in to fix pipes?

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kmag

Member
has housing ever worked out fine in any olympics?

London. It made an overall loss of about £270 million but it was wasteland and that money essentially went to the infrastructure cost and frankly given London house prices they took an unnecessary bath on the 'affordable' housing (i.e they could have sold the properties at full price but they had determined they be affordable beforehand, they actually ended up with more 'affordable' housing than the original spec).

Affordable in this context means as split of about 50% market rate, 35% 'affordable' and 15% social rate. The affordable ranges between 55% and 80% of market rate and social rates (is essentially LGA and housing authority)

After conclusion of the games, the site was being used to create a new residential quarter to be known as East Village. The new construction created 2, 818 new homes, including 1,379 affordable homes and houses, for sale and rent. The wider community is planned with wide vistas filled with gardens, parks and communal areas, within which are to be housed a school, a health clinic and shops. Having sold the affordable homes to Triathlon Homes in 2009 for £268 million, a competitive tender was issued in 2008 for ODA's interests in the remaining 1,439 private homes, along with six adjacent future development plots with the potential for a further 2,000 new homes, and long-term management of East Village.

The ODA received three bids: a joint-venture between James Ritblat's Delancey and Qatari Diar; Hutchison Whampoa; and Wellcome Trust, who bid to take over all the 2.5 square kilometres (0.97 sq mi) Olympic park. In August 2011, the ODA announced an agreement with Delancey/Qatari Diar, who paid £557 million for the East Village site, representing an estimated £275 million loss to the ODA and hence the British taxpayer. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt commented that the ODA never expected to recoup building costs: "It was an entirely empty site, it didn't have any infrastructure, roads or parks. There was always going to be a public sector contribution to help put those in."

Temporary partitions installed during the games are being removed to create a range of one to five bed homes, ranging from apartments to townhouses. The hotel style designed rooms are being converted to include kitchens. The majority of the 1,439 private homes are to be let on a rental basis, instead of being sold, with the ownership remaining with Delancey/Qatari Diar and managed by Get Living London. This will create the first UK private sector residential fund of over 1,000 homes to be owned and directly managed as an investment. In addition, the developers created new parklands and additional transport links. A health centre for residents of East Village and the surrounding areas has also been constructed. Independent retailers have been brought in to East Village, which is now a neighbourhood in its own right.

The developers also added Chobham Academy, a new education campus with 1,800 places for students aged 3–19. During the Olympics, the school building was used as the main base for organising and managing teams. Rebuilt after the games, it opened in September 2013 as Chobham Academy, home to an education campus, comprising nursery, primary and secondary schools; an adult learning facility; and a community arts complex.
 

Cheerilee

Member
Can someone who understands construction/plumbing explain how this is sabotage and not merely incompetence?

The line doesn't make any grammatical sense.

but we also believe that there was some sabotage because how do you explain if that would cement blocks within the plumbing?

I'm going to assume they mean that there are cement blockages in the plumbing?

I can see how someone might think that was deliberate sabotage on the part of someone who was working on the project.

I can also see how you're supposed to have plumbers and masons working side-by-side to ensure that your concrete structure has indoor plumbing, and if one or both of them (or their co-ordinator) is inexperienced/incompetent, I can see how that can result in wet cement flowing into a plumbing pipe.

As a random example, bathroom floors are often nice and flat and straight and level through the use of self-leveling concrete. It's runny and you can let gravity do the work of making your floor straight. But what if you pour too much of that stuff around and your toilet hole isn't protected? Excess concrete is going to run down your toilet hole. Then after you install the toilet, you find that it won't flush worth a darn. The homeowner can tear it open and find solid concrete in the hole, and reasonably ask the question "Who poured concrete down my toilet? Somebody is trying to ruin my life."
 
Aussie camera crew robbed within 1 hour of arrival in Rio, on Copacabana beach.

A CHANNEL Nine crew had a lucky escape after almost being robbed of their camera gear by a group of transvestites along Rio de Janeiro’s most famous beach...

One came straight for my cameraman Glen and that’s when security intervened, but he did get clocked on the head with a handbag, which had a brick or something in it as it was pretty hard.

Some images of the local area, shit these guys are armed.

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http://www.news.com.au/sport/olympi...e/news-story/415358896b57ccc62fa1c0c4c54c00c3
 

shira

Member
The Italian team has come up with a rather creative solution to their uncompleted rooms, and have contracted out workers on their own to finish up construction.

gold fucking medal
 

Keasar

Member
I try to read the OP article but I just keep getting stuck on the first sentence.
The troubled Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games have arrived at their first major crisis
First!?

Haven't the Rio Olympics been nothing but a disaster?
 

spyder_ur

Member
has housing ever worked out fine in any olympics?

The Atlanta village is now dorms for Georgia Tech, I believe. Pretty nice too, single rooms with 6 or so people sharing a common area. I stayed at them for 6 weeks when I did my teaching training.

I can't imagine having a roommate at the freaking Olympics.

I've got no idea if it worked out, per se, or what the condition of them is now, but it seemed like a decent solution. I know the plan if Boston got the Olympics was to sell the bulldings to local colleges as dorm space and to build with that in mind.
 

Jeffrey

Member
The Atlanta village is now dorms for Georgia Tech, I believe. Pretty nice too, single rooms with 6 or so people sharing a common area. I stayed at them for 6 weeks when I did my teaching training.

I can't imagine having a roommate at the freaking Olympics.

I've got no idea if it worked out, per se, or what the condition of them is now, but it seemed like a decent solution. I know the plan if Boston got the Olympics was to sell the bulldings to local colleges as dorm space and to build with that in mind.

oh i know north ave (went to school at tech). Am curious if those dorms had any issues during the olympics though.
 
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