London 2012 unveils brand new type of park for 21st Century

The ODA is transforming former industrial land, much of it contaminated through years of industrial neglect, to create 100 hectares of parklands that will provide a colourful setting and festival atmosphere for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond.

Designed by LDA Design.Hargreaves Associates and inspired by the Victorian and post-war pleasure and festival gardens, visitors to the park during the Games will enjoy broad sweeping lawns and footpaths leading down to riverbanks, ample seating and public spaces throughout the park with live screens showing the sporting action.

In legacy the Olympic Park will be a new green space for people and wildlife and will host the London 2012 legacy sports facilities including the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Centre, Velopark, multi-sports arena and Eton Manor outdoor sports complex.

The southern part of the Park will focus on retaining the festival atmosphere from the Games, with riverside gardens, markets, events, cafes and bars. The northern area will use the latest green techniques to manage flood and rain water while providing quieter public space and habitats for hundreds of existing and rare species from kingfishers to otters.

The ODA is working with the London Development Agency (LDA) to ensure the parklands fit into the Legacy Masterplan Framework - a spatial plan for the development of the Olympic Park site after the 2012 Games.

The Olympic Park will also feature:
– Ends –

Notes to Editors

1. Digital impressions of the parklands can be downloaded at http://mm.gettyimages.com/mm/nicePath/locog?nav=pr118568509

2. LDA Design • Hargreaves Associates was selected to design the Olympic Park parklands in spring 2007. The team includes: Buro Four, LDA Design Ecology, the University of Sheffield, Field GB, TEP, Sarah Price Landscapes, Sutton Vane, Fulcrum Consulting and Centre for Accessible Environments. LDA Design and Hargreaves Associates formed a team to work on the Park to offer their combined experience of designing parks in Britain and advising the Royal Parks Agency with international experience including designing for the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

3. Bam Nuttall has been appointed to manage the delivery of the northern section of parklands, which will include procuring and managing a number of specialist subcontractors and suppliers through a series of packages, the first of which will be for the trees and plants required for the whole Park, which will be issued soon. A contract for the landscape of the south of the park will be issued in 2009.

For further information please contact the Olympic Delivery Authority Press Office on +44 (0)203 2012 700.

The construction of the venues and infrastructure of the London 2012 Games is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor, The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency.

Find out the latest from London 2012 HQ on our blog.

• London 2012 Gardens: the gardens, stretching for half a mile sitting between the Aquatics Centre and Olympic Stadium, will celebrate centuries of British passion for gardens and plants. They will trace the journey of the UK’s plant collectors around the world through over 250 species of plants, trees, meadows and herbs from four climatic zones: Western Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia Minor; The Temperate Americas; The Southern Hemisphere, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand; Temperate Asia, including Montane China, Japan and the Himalayas.
  
• An ecological park: nearly half of the park is new habitats for wildlife including wetlands, meadows and ponds. There will be over 700 artificial habitats installed including bat and bird boxes, banks for sand martins and otter holts.
  
• A river park: Over three kilometres of restored and previously inaccessible rivers and waterways, creating sloping riverbanks and new wetlands and five ponds so that visitors will connect the northern and southern parts of the park. Most of the waterways will be lined with reedbeds and newly created slopes down to the river in the northern part of the park will have lawns for spectators with large screen displays.
  
• A smart park: cutting-edge green techniques to ‘future-proof’ the park and surrounding built-up areas against climate change and flooding and a 1:100 year storm. Rain water will be captured through paving and cleansed through a network of ditches, ponds and reedbeds and wet woodlands before being released into the river. Planting designed to create a ‘cool island’ on hot days and over 2000 large trees and other plants to protect people from strong sun and winds. Community allotments, growing and composting will support sustainable living.
  
• A regeneration park: new high-quality green space, open and accessible to all, for social, community and leisure uses in legacy. Footpaths, cycleways and avenues of trees linking the park with existing and future communities during and after the Games which will promote healthy lifestyles.
  

ODA Chief Executive David Higgins said: 'We will be creating a brand new park, the first in London for many years. It will be a park for the 21st century, setting high standards which combine the best of British park heritage with sustainable living. It will be a fantastic backdrop for the Games and the heart of the new community in the area post-2012.

'During the Games the Olympic Park will create a festival atmosphere space for spectators and provide a fantastic green backdrop for the four billion people watching around the world on TV.

'In legacy the Park will provide new green space for people and wildlife. It will also be designed to protect the area from floods, capture and clean rainwater and create vital and rare habitats for hundreds of species.'

Paul Deighton CEO for LOCOG said: 'We are creating a stunning urban park for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games that will come alive as the centrepiece of our plans in just over three and a half year’s time. The range of settings created within the Olympic Park will enable more people to be part of the celebrations and the action in the summer of 2012 and mean we will leave a wonderful legacy for the residents of East London and the rest of the capital.'

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said: 'London 2012 will create the largest new urban park in Europe for 150 years and we are determined to ensure that it is one of the most spectacular.

'These designs represent the very best in urban landscape and will not only make the Olympic Park a destination in itself - creating a fantastic atmosphere during the Games - but also leave a beautiful landscape for millions to enjoy for generations to come.'

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: As a direct result of hosting the 2012 Games, London gets this fantastic green space in the heart of east London - Europe's first new public park for more than 150 years. Not only will this provide a great facility for athletes and spectators to relax in during the Games, I can see this becoming a highly popular attraction with Londoners and tourists alike on a par with the capital's other world famous parks in the centre of the city.'

LDA Design. Hargreaves Associates Managing Partner Andrew Harland said: 'This park will be a wonderful setting for the celebration of the London 2012 Games with a distinct British quality that also meets the ODA’s objectives for sustainability. Throughout the design process we are considering the future so that the park will work for both the Games and legacy. It will operate on so many levels and it’s very exciting to be part of the team responsible for its design, knowing that we will leave London another excellent green space.'

Tom Russell, Group Director for Olympic Legacy at the LDA, said: 'The parkland is a core part of the physical legacy from the 2012 Games and will connect to the Lea River Park to the north and the south of the Olympic site. Our legacy masterplan will enhance what is left after 2012 to ensure it complements the new homes, workspaces and other developments on the Olympic Park site as well as the existing communities living around it. This will help safeguard a lasting legacy for generations to come.'

George Hargreaves, Founder and Design Director of Hargreaves Associates, said: 'We have created two distinct parks through reclamation for the East End. One in the north is highly ecological with biodiversity and sustainability as major goals. In the south we have sought to create a park that is a contemporary cultural expression of the British love of plants from around the world.

'At the end of the day these parks will be considered a success by not only how they celebrate the games but also how they extend a green Olympic Legacy into the future for existing inhabitants and those who live and visit here in the decades to come.'

Janet Paraskeva, Chair of the Olympic Lottery Distributor, said: 'The National Lottery has breathed new life into many great parks across the UK and this fantastic brand new park will help us deliver on our promise to regenerate east London.

'We are all looking forward to the 2012 Games and we are now beginning to see how investing Lottery money in the Olympic Park will bring benefits for generations to come.'

Factsheet

The Olympic Park will include [NB 1 hectare= 0.65 football pitch]:

• 3 km of restored and accessible previously neglected and inaccessible rivers;
  
• Over 2000 large trees on the concourse and in woodland, including willows, poplars, planes, oaks and limes;
  
• At least 250 species of plants will make up the London 2012 Gardens;
  
• 5 frog ponds;
  
• Almost 10 hectares of species rich meadows and lawns;
  
• Over six hectares of woodlands, hedgerows and scrub;
  
• 2.1 hectares of allotments in legacy;
  
• Two hectares of reed beds;
  
• Over 700 (nesting boxes and holes for birds and 150 (50 by 2012 and a further 100 post-Games) for bats;
  
• New habitats for species including: otter; kingfisher; grey heron; bee; house sparrow; bat; song thrush; starling; toadflax brocade moth; lizard; black redstart; flower and fungus beetle; frogs, newts and toads; eel; water vole; slow worm; grass snake; linnet; sand martin; swift; invertebrates; and
  
• Two hectares of scrub and brownfield type land for wildlife previously living in the Olympic Park;
  
• 102 hectares of open land in legacy, 45 hectares of habitats;
  
• 130,000 spectators in the park per day at peak, 11,000 in the spectator lawns and hills.