London's Olympic Legacy

Our work began in 2003 as one of a team of four consultants who developed a masterplan for a new Olympic Park for London's successful bid to the International Olympic Committee to host the 2012 Games. The location was an elongated site in the Lower Lea Valley at Stratford in east London. Here, the River Lea, which flows south into the Thames, had long formed a divide separating the body of the city from its eastern extension.

One surprising asset of the site, even before the Games were ever planned, was the quality of its neighbouring railway connections thanks to the proximity of Stratford Station. Today, the station connects three tube lines, two National Rail lines, the Docklands Light Rail, Overground and Eurostar services. Indeed over the course of the Olympic Games more than 85% of visitors arrived at the park by rail.

In a wider strategic context, the project was an opportunity to bridge long-standing inequalities between west and east London. Many of the areas around the site has some of the UK's highest areas of deprivation and there had long been a desire to redress this imbalance. So, the Olympic Games were to be a catalyst for a much larger project of urban change. It was thus essential that the Olympics be planned in an efficient and sustainable way whereby venues and infrastructure could have a useful life long after the Games, avoiding the expensive white elephants that have mired the experience of some other host cities.

At the heart of the plan was a very simple diagram. In the centre of the park was a wide public concourse. This was surrounded by a ring of venues. Around these were the temporary structures that fed and supported the Games. The pattern was like that of the previous Games in Beijing, but the London concourse was substantially smaller, and more organic in form, respecting the found topography. It followed the landscape and was threaded with waterways.

The park was planned across two discrete topographical layers: a lower level defined by the waterways that meander through the site; and an upper level defined by the platform of the public concourse on which various venues were constructed. The scale and configuration were developed principally in response to anticipated visitor numbers, up to 250,000 people during the busiest days of the Games. After the Olympics, the extent of the concourse was substantially reduced, replacing much of the previously paved area with planting. In this way, a landscape designed initially to accommodate large numbers of people at a global event evolved into today's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and amenity for the local communities that line it.

Of the primary sporting venues, just four were retained - the Stadium, Aquatics Centre, Handball Arena and Velodrome. These each maintain a relationship with the park and the surrounding urban areas. The remaining venues were designed as temporary facilities and dismantled post-Games.

Parkland and landscape have stimulated a new piece of city, a damaged ecosystem has been healed with the River Lea's water quality greatly improved. And now, people are populating the park and its edges. By 2031, there will be over 55,000 people living on and around the park across the neighbourhoods that line it: Chobham Manor, East Wick, Sweetwater and Pudding Mill. The jewel in the crown of the legacy is a new cultural and educational district, East Bank, which brings together new venues for the London College of Fashion, V&A/Smithsonian, Sadlers Wells and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Following a global competition in 2015, we were appointed to lead on the design of this, continuing our involvement with the Olympic Legacy.

London's experience has proved to be a model for other cities seeking to host the Olympic Games in ways responsible and sustainable. For London, the Olympics has provided an opportunity to take a far more radical and comprehensive approach to an area's transformation, setting in motion the creation of a new piece of city.