Things will be somewhat different than normal this summer for Olympians in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, as this year the buildings will not have air conditioning units. According to Yann Krysinksi, who is in charge of delivering the venues and infrastructure for the games, the AC units will not be necessary because of how the buildings were designed.
Apparently, that design system involves using cold water from 70 meters underground, which will be piped through the floors of the buildings to reduce temperatures, and the facades and insulation were designed to keep the buildings from getting too warm where A/C would be necessary.
According to reports in Fox News Digital and Reuters on the matter, Krysinski, commenting on the design of the buildings, said, “We designed these buildings so that they would be comfortable places to live in in the summer, in 2024 and later on, and we don’t need air conditioning in these buildings because we oriented the facades so that they wouldn’t get too much sun during the summer, and the facades, the insulation is really efficient.”
Further, Fox News Digital reports that the design decision came as “part of the organizing committee’s goal to cut the carbon footprint of the Paris Games by half.” In fact, it reports that the committee is attempting to use natural sources, such as architecture decisions and the above-mentioned water cooling system, to keep guests and athletes cool while making the Paris Games “the most sustainable Olympics to date.”
Laurent Michaud, the director of the Olympic and Paralympic Villages, told the Associated Press that the rooms held up well in a heatwave simulation. He said, “Despite outdoor temperatures reaching 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit), we had temperatures at 28 degrees (82 degrees Fahrenheit) in most of these rooms.” Continuing, he added, “In other rooms, we clearly had lower temperatures.”
Some teams remain unconvinced of the efficacy of the design decisions, however. According to Fox News Digital, the CEO of Australia’s Olympic Committee, Matt Carroll, said that the Australian team will spend about $150,000 on setting up air conditioning for its athletes. Similarly, the Greek team will, according to Greece’s Olympic committee, bring its own cooling systems.
Those decisions stand in contrast to what Laurent Monnet, the person “in charge of the green transition at Saint-Denis City Hall, Paris’ northern suburb where the main Olympic Village will be located,” desired out of the no-AC buildings. Monnet, commenting on the matter, said, “We need athletes to set an example when they use the buildings.” Monnet continued, “We can build the most virtuous village we want, it is also the use that will be made of it that will weigh on our carbon footprint.”
Similarly, the Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, insisted that there would be no changes to the design plan for the no-AC Olympic Village, saying, “I can assure you that we will not change course and that there will be no changes to the construction program of the village regarding air conditioning.”
Featured image credit: By Gzzz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87866675
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