World leading landscape architect to design ‘living, breathing’ Olympic Park

The designers will develop detailed proposals for the open spaces in the Olympic Park for the Games and legacy using their combined experience designing groundbreaking parks in London, the UK and across the world, including the Sydney 2000 Olympic Park.

The 2.5 kilometre square Olympic Park is currently being been cleared and cleaned ready for construction to start in the summer. In 2009 work will start creating the parklands and public spaces that will enhance the experience of the London 2012 Games and form the largest new urban park in London since the great Victorian era of park building.

Early plans for the legacy Olympic Park envisage nine character areas that enhance the ecology and biodiversity of the park, and create a vibrant mix of leisure and recreational activities. These will potentially include:  

• allotments and other food growing areas;
• meadows, wetlands, wooded valleys, orchards and viewing hills;
• new wildlife habitats;
• areas and facilities for a range of sports such as canoeing, mountain biking, climbing and cricket;
• revitalised waterways, towpaths and river walks;
• natural amphitheatres and lawns for events and festivals; and
• new cycle and footpaths connecting the Lower Lea Valley with the Thames for the first time.

The ODA and LDA Design • Hargreaves Associates will be consulting the public further on the detailed legacy plans in partnership with the London Development Agency ahead of a planning application later this year.

ODA Chief Executive David Higgins said: 'We want to create an Olympic Park that enhances the experience of the London 2012 Games for spectators, athletes and the global audience and then becomes a living, breathing new urban park in legacy. Our world leading design team will help develop our plans to transform this former industrial area into a thriving park that boosts sustainable and active living, creates new wildlife habitats and anchors the regeneration of a neglected part of east London.'

ODA Head of Parklands and Public Realm John Hopkins said: 'The Olympic Park will be the centrepiece of the London 2012 Games and its legacy. It is an opportunity to create a landmark park for the 21st century. We will be working with our design team to create a groundbreaking park that provides high quality open and green space to encourage a range of sporting, leisure, social and educational activities for existing and new communities.'

ODA Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism Ricky Burdett said: 'LDA Design • Hargreaves Associates team will bring a level of imagination and skill to the Olympic Park that will create an exciting and dynamic natural environment in this fast-changing part of East London. The design team has already created some of the most elegant, modern and sculpted designs for parks across the world. The team will bring a fresh design approach to the Olympic Park that will make the most of the site's existing natural features and water courses with confident and robust solutions for the Games and after.'

LDA Design • Hargreaves Associates Managing Partner Andrew Harland said: 'The Olympic Park is the UK’s most significant landscape project in years, and is likely to be so for many years to come. It is the centrepiece of Europe’s largest regeneration programme and will have a positive economic and social impact on the area while also demonstrating exemplar sustainability.'

Design Director George Hargreaves said: 'The close collaboration with LDA Design, and the great team we’ve put together, means we can help give Britain a unique and fabulous park that will be just as wonderful for people to use after the event as it will be during 2012.'

Tom Russell, LDA Group Director for Olympic Legacy, said: 'The Park will be the centrepiece for east London's regeneration. Over the next 18 months our legacy masterplanners will develop the framework for homes, parkland, schools, workspace, health and sporting facilities to be built on the Olympic Park site after the 2012 Games. They will be working closely with the parkland design team to ensure that parkland facilities are developed alongside the overall masterplan to serve new and existing communities in east London.'

Notes to editors:

1. LDA Design • Hargreaves was selected following a competitive procurement through the English Partnership design panel. The design team includes two up-and-coming London-based design firms BBUK and Kinnear Landscape Architects and Sarah Price Landscapes. Kinnear are based in Hackney, a London 2012 host borough.

2. LDA Design has worked on many of the country’s most innovative and significant park and public realm projects including Gunpowder Park, Lea Valley, London; the People’s Playground, Blackpool seafront and has worked with the Royal Parks Agency for the last decade.

3. International landscape architecture firm, Hargreaves Associates, delivered the Sydney Olympic Public Realm and Legacy Parkland. Other major schemes include the waterfront park in Lisbon for Expo ’98 and Crissy Field, which involved the restoration of the famous San Francisco Bay waterfront.

4. The ODA has recently shortlisted for the contract to manage the landscaping of the north of the Olympic Park and will issue a contract to manage the landscaping in the south of the Park later in 2008.

5. The Olympic Park will provide over 100 hectares of Metropolitan open space in legacy.

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

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