Most Compact Design in Winter Games History 
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationPyeongChang, South Korea
ClientSpace Group Architects; Taeyoung Corporation
Size2.5 km2 / 620 acres

SWA’s master plan for the three Nordic Events venues—the Ski Jumping, Cross Country Skiing, and Biathlon stadia and courses—honors the natural beauty of a spectacular Olympic Winter Games landscape as never before. The venues were originally slated to be located in separate valleys, requiring athletes and spectators to travel from site to site. But in PyeongChang, SWA departed from that logic and instead took their cues from the landscape itself, resulting in the most compact design in Olympic Winter Games history. Locating all events in one valley achieved two goals: creating the most efficient, exciting experience for both athletes and visitors to the Games, and disturbing the region’s steep terrain and pristine pine forests as little as possible. In PyeongChang, pedestrians flowed along a continuous promenade between these venues, saving hours of shuttle bus time while also being immersed in a high-octane sports experience. The arrival sequence to the Ski Jumping Stadium is choreographed to build viewer excitement, where a plaza is flanked by three practice jumps, the monorail that transports athletes, coaches and officials to the tower and Large Hill and Normal Hill in-runs, and the Ski Jumping Stadium itself. Created for Korea’s 2014 Olympic Winter Games bid, summers also bring an active site, with an 18-hole golf course, roller-blade training, and soccer pitch replacing the snow sports.

Related Projects

Dallas Arboretum: A Tasteful Place

A year-round “food oasis” awaits visitors at A Tasteful Place, a new edible/display garden within the Dallas Arboretum. A continuation of SWA’s Arboretum work (which includes Red Maple Rill and the Children’s Garden), A Tasteful Place provides visual and hands-on education about plants and herbs that can be used in visitors’ daily cooking and explored in...

Library of Congress Packard Campus

A 45-acre site 70 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. serves as the home for the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Collections. The 400,000-square-foot complex consolidates the world’s largest audio-visual collection and provides improved facilities for research, digital conversion, long-term conservation, and public apprec...

Atherton Civic Center and Library

The vision for the Atherton Civic Center landscape is a community space set in a peaceful garden, designed to enhance the local ecology and mitigate the urban impacts of the new development. The landscape design integrates new architecture into the wider Atherton community through a strolling garden approach to site circulation. The planting areas are comprise...

Nanhu New Country Village

China’s rapid urbanization over the past several decades has radically diminished its agricultural landscapes and labor force, focusing instead on industrial and technological advancements. The Nanhu New Country Village brings a contemporary approach to integrating agriculture and residences in a village setting, enhancing existing rural character, and improvi...

Dallas Arboretum: A Tasteful Place

A year-round “food oasis” awaits visitors at A Tasteful Place, a new edible/display garden within the Dallas Arboretum. A continuation of SWA’s Arboretum work (which includes Red Maple Rill and the Children’s Garden), A Tasteful Place provides visual and hands-on education about plants and herbs that can be used in visitors’ daily cooking and explored in...

Nanhu New Country Village

China’s rapid urbanization over the past several decades has radically diminished its agricultural landscapes and labor force, focusing instead on industrial and technological advancements. The Nanhu New Country Village brings a contemporary approach to integrating agriculture and residences in a village setting, enhancing existing rural character, and improvi...

California Academy of Sciences

One of San Francisco’s first sustainable building projects, the California Academy of Sciences supports a stunning 2.5-acre green roof. Emphasizing habitat quality and connectivity, the project has received two LEED Platinum certifications.

The building’s architectural team, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), invited SWA Group and horticultural c...

Library of Congress Packard Campus

A 45-acre site 70 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. serves as the home for the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Collections. The 400,000-square-foot complex consolidates the world’s largest audio-visual collection and provides improved facilities for research, digital conversion, long-term conservation, and public apprec...