ArcelorMittal Orbit in the context of "Structural engineering"

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⭐ Core Definition: ArcelorMittal Orbit

The ArcelorMittal Orbit (often referred to as the Orbit Tower or its original name, Orbit) is a 114.5-metre (376-foot) sculpture and observation tower in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London. It is Britain's largest piece of public art, and is intended to be a permanent lasting legacy of London's hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, assisting in the post-Olympics regeneration of the Stratford area. Sited between London Stadium (formerly called the Olympic Stadium) and the Aquatics Centre, it allows visitors to view the whole Olympic Park from two observation platforms.

Orbit was designed by Turner Prize–winning artist Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond of Arup Group, an engineering firm. Announced on 31 March 2010, it was expected to be completed by December 2011. The project came about after Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell decided in 2008 that the Olympic Park needed "something extra". Designers were asked for ideas for an "Olympic tower" at least 100 metres (330 ft) high: Orbit was the unanimous choice from proposals considered by a nine-person advisory panel. Kapoor and Balmond believed that Orbit represented a radical advance in the architectural field of combining sculpture and structural engineering, and that it combined both stability and instability in a work that visitors can engage with and experience via an incorporated spiral walkway. It has been both praised and criticised for its bold design, and has especially received criticism as a vanity project of questionable lasting use or merit as a public art project.

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ArcelorMittal Orbit in the context of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a sporting complex and public park in Stratford, Hackney Wick, Leyton and Bow, in east London. It was purpose-built for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, situated adjacent to the Stratford City development. It contains the Olympic stadium, now known as the London Stadium, and the Olympic swimming pool together with the athletes' Olympic Village and several other Olympic sporting venues and the London Olympics Media Centre. The park is overlooked by the ArcelorMittal Orbit, an observation tower and Britain's largest piece of public art.

It was simply called The Olympic Park during the Games but was later renamed to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II (though it is not an official Royal Park of London). The park occupies an area straddling four east London boroughs; Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest. Part of the park reopened in July 2013, while a large majority of the rest (including the Aquatics Centre, Velopark and Orbit observation tower) reopened in April 2014.

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ArcelorMittal Orbit in the context of Anish Kapoor

Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor CBE RA (born 12 March 1954) is a British sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor attended the all-boys Indian boarding school The Doon School, before moving to the United Kingdom to begin his art training at Hornsey College of Art and, later, Chelsea School of Art and Design.

His notable public sculptures include Cloud Gate, also known as "The Bean" (2006) in Chicago's Millennium Park; Sky Mirror, exhibited at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2006 and Kensington Gardens in London in 2010; Temenos, at Middlehaven, Middlesbrough; Leviathan, at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011; and ArcelorMittal Orbit, commissioned as a permanent artwork for London's Olympic Park and completed in 2012. In 2017, Kapoor designed the statuette for the 2018 Brit Awards.

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ArcelorMittal Orbit in the context of Cecil Balmond

Cecil Balmond OBE is a British Sri Lankan designer, artist, and writer. In 1968, Balmond joined Ove Arup & Partners, leading him to become deputy chairman. In 2000, he founded design and research group, the AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit).He currently holds the Paul Philippe Cret Chair at PennDesign as Professor of Architecture where he is also the founding director of the Non Linear Systems Organization, a material and structural research unit. He has also been Kenzo Tange Visiting Design Critic at Harvard Graduate School of Architecture (2000), Eero Saarinen Visiting professor at Yale University School of Architecture (1997–2002) and visiting fellow at London School of Economics Urban Cities Programme (2002–2004).

In 2010, Balmond set up his own practice, Balmond Studio, with offices in London and Colombo. The research led practice is involved with art, architecture, design and consulting.

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