Sasaki won first prize in the international design competition to establish the master plan for the Olympic Green – the main site of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. As winners of this original competition, Sasaki is proud to have set the urban design framework for the design of the Olympic Green. However, the actual implementation of the architecture and landscape architecture of the site was accomplished by other firms.The Olympic Green is an ambitious, unprecedented effort at city building in a setting of immense history and cultural richness. No other modern Olympiad has been hosted within such a profound and globally significant milieu. Sasaki’s proposal is deeply connected to an environmental ideal that has its beginnings in the myth and legends of ancient China, linked to the present day in recognizing the imperative of sustainable development.The Olympic Green seeks balance and integration – both poetic and pragmatic. The plan seeks to balance East with West, the ancient with the contemporary, development with nature, and existing surrounding context with the Olympic Green. The concept has three fundamental elements: The Forest Park, and its extension southward, The Cultural Axis, the northward extension and conclusion of the great imperial axis, and The Olympic Axis, linking the Asian Games site with the National Stadium.Sasaki's urban design concept was the basis for implementing the Olympic Green. While a part of the Sasaki plan has been implemented, the plan calls for much of the mixed-use district to be built after the Games are completed, creating a vibrant urban district for Beijing.
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