Recently Korean architects presented the new hotel project which will host the Winter Olympic Games 2018. The green terrace-lined design snakes in cascading curves that form an infinity shape. The new hotel will be located in Gangneung in Eastern Korea in a prime position for tourism. The resort itself is within approximately 5 kilometers from Olympic stadiums and facilities in the area, most of which are due for completion in 2016. The building, designed by the Seoul architectural firm "Planning Korea", looks like a three-dimensional infinity sign or volume Mobius strip. Architectures also mentioned that the sweeping figure-eight form of the resort draws inspiration from the ecological structure of the plankton, and references the project's conceptual basis of "a strip of healing or recreation." The twisted loop forms the predominant circulation space of the structure, whilst also providing a substantial space frame upon which a glass facade will be mounted. Offering 946 rooms and sprawling across nearly a 30 thousand square meters site, the hotel will offer a combination of marine and mountain leisure activities. The hotel will also feature a swimming pool suspended in a "belt" linking the building's dual cores. Rooftop sky facilities will adorn the hotel's top level, while LED lights at lower levels create a media facade. Approaching ground level the structure assumes a form evocative of Korean traditional housing, the Hanok. Planning Korea hope to "form a village" using these modernized versions of the traditional typology, interspersing restaurants and retail outlets in their midst. It is envisioned that the resort will allow "activities, recreation and healing within the nature" during the 2018 Winter Olympics, after which point it will be used for conventions and other events.

The greenest building is the one that's already standing, and this week London officials announced that the buildings from the 2012 Olympic Village will be transformed into rental units, and many of them will be reserved for low-income housing. It has just been announced that the Olympic Village in London will be getting a face-lift to accommodate a new neighborhood, which London is calling the East Village. The East Village will have 2,818 brand new homes to be rented for this summer, and 1,379 of these homes will go to low-income Londoners. This is a great solution for London, since the city's housing shortage was intensified by the global recession in 2007. Cranes and construction crews have been busy at the Olympic Village since it was purchased by the Qatar wealth fund Qatari Diar and British developer Delancey for US$ 870 million. The Olympic Delivery Authority is currently removing all the temporary structures that were in place for the Olympics so that new kitchens can be retrofitted into the 2,818 apartments in the village. The first batch of apartments should be ready for rent by August. London Housing Association Triathlon Homes will be offering the low-income apartments, while Qatari Diar will lease the other properties at market rates. The move will add some much-needed inventory to the London housing market. The UK has traditionally been unkind to renters, and a study by the housing charity Shelter found that 55 percent of renters believed that they wouldn't ever be able to save enough to buy a home. The new East Village will offer rental apartments at reasonable rates in order to begin to change that perception. The residential housing system, Get Living London, has launched a campaign to begin to move people towards East Village. Who wouldn't want to live in an area that has a new education campus, health center, restaurants, and is close to the Olympic Park? Earlier announced, that after the 2012 Summer Olympics are over, the Olympic Park will again be transformed. In 2013, the roughly 500 thousand square meters Park in East London will reopen as Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The 114.5-meters tall ArcelorMittal Orbit will still tower over the park, and the Olympic stadium will be downsized to a permanent stadium that will seat 25 thousand people. Now the Olympic Delivery Authority is currently removing all the temporary structures.

With exactly a year to go until the start of London's third summer Games, the Olympic Park in working class Stratford, one of Britain's most ambitious and costly urban renewal projects, now boasts all its main structures that will stage next year's sporting drama, reported news agency reuters.com. The Aquatics Center, which officially opened its doors on July 27, joins the towering Olympic Stadium, the sleek-looking Velodrome, the multi-use handball arena and the enormous International Broadcast Center (IBC) which have changed the skyline of London's eastern approaches. Basketball's gleaming white 12,000-seat rectangular venue is also ready for use, although despite its imposing size it will be dismantled after the Games. More than 160,000 tons of soil, much of it contaminated, were dug out to build the Aquatics Center - an operation that uncovered several Iron Age skeletons as well an assortment of rusting relics from the area's former uses. Even a two-month delay in completing the US$ 1.67 billion Aquatics Center, it seems, has its advantages. The iconic Aquatics Center, which houses two 50 meters pools and a diving pool and can seat 17,500 spectators during the Games, came in over budget and also missed its completion date because of complications over its roof design and heating systems. The cosmetics are still to be applied, such as the greening of the park with thousands of trees and plants, temporary venues constructed, and the athletes Village to be fitted out, but London 2012 chief Sebastian Coe said the handover of the sixth main building project on the Park with a year still remaining was a cause for pride.

As reported by london2012.com, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has announced the completion of its fifth venue, the International Broadcast Centre (IBC), on the 2012 London Olympic Park. The new centre will form part of the Main Media Complex, a 24-hour media hub which also includes the Main Press Centre (MPC). The complex will cater for over 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and print journalists, bringing the Games to an estimated four billion people across the world. The complex will also have a catering village and a multi-storey car park connects the two main venues together via a structure which includes a conference room for up to 700 people. The broadcasting centre has been designed by Allies and Morrison to be as flexible as possible to accommodate a range of potential tenants and uses after the games. The steel frame of the IBC is 275 meters long, 104 meters wide, 21 meters tall and big enough to house five jumbo jets. After the Games, the IBC has been designed to accommodate a range of potential tenants with hopes that major technology companies will move in.