practicetheory: August 2012

London 2012 – The Olympic Park Revisited

Athletics events had started in the Stadium when I revisited the Olympic Park during the second week of the Games and the arrival of an additional 80,000 spectators from all over the world charged the atmosphere. Although the Park and venues have provided a great setting for this transient festival of sport, the pressure of managing the large number of spectators has led to extensive perimeter crowd barriers and tented ticketing pavilions. This creates an odd situation, in which even fine permanent structures acquire an ad hoc character. In previous blogposts* I have criticized the temporary spectator stands at Hadid Architects’ Aquatics Centre, but in retrospect there seems little alternative to accepting a husk of temporary accommodation and Olympic branding, which will be cast off on the conclusion of the Games. In fact access to these temporary stands, via stairs which penetrate the raking structure, has an expedient grandeur.

The foundation for the success of the Olympic Park lies in the infrastructure of paths, bridges, copses and meadows that have been overlaid on the banks of the river Lea. Add carefully placed temporary structures, several permanent buildings and a hundred thousand spectators and you have a wonderful environment for the Games. For those lucky enough to have been there, the memory of the sporting drama at this place will stay with us for a long time to come. We can look forward to the Park opening to the public next year and hope that the redevelopment of the area following the Games will also confound the sceptics.

*blogpost 28.04.12 & 05.08.12

The Aquatics Centre temporary stand

The Basketball Building

The Velodrome

Signage is crude but effective

The Water Polo Building

Temporary stands and access smother the Aquatics Centre

Temporary crowd barriers and tented pavilions are ubiquitous

Temporary access and signage at the Aquatics Centre

Access to the temporary stands - Aquatics Centre

Inside the Aquatics Centre

2012 Olympic Park London

At the halfway point in the 2012 London Olympic Games we can enjoy not only our success in winning medals, but satisfaction in delivering such a major international event with imagination and efficiency. The Olympic Park is a great achievement. It would be unreasonable to judge a temporary event by normal criteria, but is it possible to create a high quality environment at such a mammoth scale for use over a few weeks?

When I visited the Olympic Park on Monday to attend some preliminary handball matches there was a festival atmosphere. An unprepossessing entry to the site, approaching from West Ham through steel security gates, is quickly dispelled by a coherent landscape design, with the Athletics Stadium at its centre and bound together by sculpted landforms with generous paths and spectacular swathes of flowering meadow. A background concern at the Games has been the threat of terrorism and the organisers have done well to restrict visible security to the screening of visitors entering the site. The atmosphere is relaxed.

Many of the structures are temporary, some built with more panache than others, although this might just be a reflection of different budget constraints. The hooped surface of Wilkinson Eyre’s Basketball Arena and AEW’s timber framed McDonalds outlets have distinctive identities, but the Water Polo building and temporary spectator stands of the Aquatics Centre appear clumsy. Many of the buildings are screened off at ground level with fabric covered standard steel barriers. This is a real pity, especially for the Velodrome and the Orbit tower, both dynamic designs which would otherwise engage well with visitors. Similarly, there are many tented temporary structures for security checks, food outlets etc. The experience on the ground is often governed more by these modest elements than the grand gestures of ‘object’ architecture. Would it have been possible to design screening and secondary accommodation in such a way that it reinforced the refreshingly bold landscape strategy, rather than created a barrier between the buildings and their environs?

Hopkins’s Velodrome* is outstanding, reconciling expressive form with highly sustainable design. Although Hadid’s Aquatics Centre* is marred by the large temporary spectator stands, in legacy mode this will surely be a beautiful building, even if the heavy sculptural structure is less sustainable than that of the Velodrome. The handball matches that we attended were played in Make Architect’s ‘Copper Box’. This refreshingly unpretentious building is clad in salvaged copper sheet and destined for use as a flexible use community sports venue after the Games. The Athletics Stadium, Orbit tower and Velodrome are well integrated into the landscape. Minor criticisms of the temporary configuration will certainly be forgotten as we see the development of Olympic Park into an enduring legacy for the 2012 Games. *blogpost 28.04.12