The largest multi-sport competition in the world is due to hit London soon, and while it promises to be an epic event, there has been an enormous amount of controversy surrounding the 2012 Olympic Games.
From budget short falls to the ticketing process, there has been no shortage of criticism. But the vision and aspiration of the Olympic Delivery Authority, who are behind the bid has never faltered.
And what a vision it is. Every brick, tree, piece of wood, pane of glass and particle of soil has been carefully planned. The Olympic venues themselves, whether they are to be permanent or temporary structures, are beautifully crafted, but even more impressive is the thought process behind the whole site itself.
To fully appreciate what is being achieved, it is necessary to understand what existed before. When London secured the right to host the 2012 Olympics, the east London boroughs were among some of the most socially and economically deprived urban areas in Europe.
An Extensive Brief
John Hopkins is the designer responsible for the design and delivery of the parkland and public realm setting for the Games and legacy development. He controls a £250m budget, and his brief is far more extensive than the Olympics and Paralympics events. Hopkins and a team of internationally-renown architects, including Zaha Hadid and Anish Kapoor, have taken key issues such as sustainability, regeneration, economic viability and accessibility and used them to guide every decision they have made.
Hopkins said: ‘This area had double the average level of unemployment, high crime and poor health.
‘The site itself was poor, there were serious infrastructure problems, waterways were ignored and there was raw sewerage pouring into the river. And after 150 years of dereliction and pollution the soil was contaminated with arsenic and a host of other pollutants.’
The strategy employed by the ODA was to base the Olympic vision on One Planet living principles. These concentrate on providing a new ecological structure that is designed to the benefit of the people and the economy and concentrates upon creating an area driven by bio-diversity.
The headline achievements are impressive. There is a 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from permanent buildings in the Olympic Park; more than half the construction materials are brought in by rail or river; it is planned that 100 per cent of spectators will arrive at the Park by public transport; more than 100 walking and cycling schemes will be in place; and 90 per cent of materials removed from the site have already been cleaned and re-used.
Behind the Headlines
There is also the fact that the project is due to complete early and under budget. Something the media has not reported as promptly or as loudly as it did when the project threatened to go into spending free-fall.
Once the Olympics and Paralympics are over, the ownership and management of the site will be transferred to the Olympic Park Legacy Company, and it is to this company that continuing the legacy will fall. Hopkins admitted that this is where the vision could falter – through a potential lack of funding or a lack of support from future governments or local authorities.
That is a problem for later. Right now the 80,000 capacity stadium rises out of the building site majestically. Its top layer, which will be removed at the end of the Paralympics, is made of disused gas pipes, a further nod to the recycling and sustainability agenda that is the signature to the whole project. West Ham football club will be the new residents of the stadium in 2013, although the club plans to maintain an athletics track for major events.
A New Skyscape for East London
Equally impressive are the iconic Aquatics Centre and Velodrome. Both are permanent structures, although the wings of the Aquatics Centre, which will house the spectators, will be removed after the Games.
The basketball centre is a temporary building, and will be dismantled and sold. The car park will be converted to football pitches and the handball arena will be turned into a community multi-sport centre. Eton Manor, which is being used for wheelchair tennis and aquatics during the Games will be transformed into two community hockey pitches, tennis and five-a-side football facilities.
While the International Broadcast Centre will be dismantled and recycled following the Games, it is planned that the huge media centre, lying adjacent to it, will become a film studio and the bridges and temporary concourses leading to the stadium will be taken up and the locks re-opened.
A Carefully-Planned Wilderness
A planned wet-land will be allowed to regularly flood so that wildlife can thrive in the area. More than 700 wildlife installations such as bird boxes, swift hotels and otter holts will be placed around the 42-hectare park and 4,000 semi-mature, indigenous trees will be planted.
Further afield, Victoria Park and the upper end of the Lee Valley Park will provide for walkers, cyclists and water sports enthusiasts.
The athletes’ village will turn to housing for both public and private ventures. Half of the available flats will be affordable housing, 20 per cent will be intermediary, allowing people to pay a combination of rent and mortgage, while 30 per cent will be available on the open market.
If a visitors takes a walk through the surrounding boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest they might be forgiven for thinking that these areas are a long way removed from the gleaming ideal outlined by the ODA. There is still obviously a lot of poverty. The extra work available at the Olympic Park has not yet addressed the unemployment issues.
But the beauty of the project is that it is clearly focused on the east of London. The affluent tourist area of the West End does not figure here. King’s Cross and St Pancras will be linked to Stratford International station by the ultra-fast javelin train.. The Westfield shopping centre is attracting big name retailers, such as John Lewis, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer. The Olympic site itself is being praised by some of the countries top designer and architects as the most well-thought out programme of urban development this country has seen.
Hopkins said: ‘We were determined to avoid the iron-rusted remains of the Athens Olympics. This four-week period of sport has given us the chance to regenerate the east side of London and offer the people who live there a bright new future.’
Sarah Juggins - A magazine editor, blogger and freelance journalist, Sarah Juggins writes with authority and accuracy on a range of subjects.
