I have long been fascinated by how spaces change when crowds move in. I commute through North Greenwich station - where the O2 is - and it never ceases to amaze me how that experience changes daily based on who is playing the arena. Of course North Greenwich is far from alone. Almost every settlement in the country has a space transformed by a sporting event, a weekly market, or even an annual fete.

The far extreme of this is, of course, the Olympics - an event at such a scale that a small city must be built to house its few weeks of events. What is perhaps even more fascinating than how crowds change a place is what our approach to designing for them says about the society we are.

The key challenge with spaces built for crowds is what they become once the crowd has left. A report by the IOC in 2022 tracked nine hundred and twenty three venues from twenty five summer and twenty three winter games, noting that 92% of all the permanent venues were still in use, with only 4% closed, inactive or abandoned (the remainder had been demolished). The report paints a rosy picture of cities left with vibrant venues that boost the local economy for decades to come.

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