Who else is beyond excited to finally watch the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games?! I know I am! If you’ve read my blog since 2016, then you know I am a massive Olympic Games fan! After all, my dad did go to three different trials for the games, so it’s in my DNA to be a fan! “Michelle, didn’t you re-brand your blog to be about all things botanical? What do the Olympics have to do with that”? Quality question! Believe it or not, landscape architecture actually plays a role in many aspects of the Olympic games. For example, this botanical travel, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park!
If you’ve read my post about landscape architecture, you know that planning is a big aspect of our profession. Fun Fact: Urban Planning was an Olympic sport. With an estimated 600,000 visitors attending the Olympics, sufficiently planning the Olympic park is essential. One park that created a dynamic backdrop for the games and became a poster child for botanical park planning is the 2012 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.
About Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Situated in the East London area of Stratford, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is considered the largest park to be built in London in over 150 years! Comprising of 274 acres of green space, it definitely wins Olympic gold for being the greenest Olympic park ever! For a little history, in 2005 London won the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. By 2008, construction of the Olympic Park began. After the games, the park officially reopened as Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2014.
This mega-sports campus truly sets the Olympic record for environmental restoration & sustainability efforts. While it is pretty common to see Olympic parks fall into disarray shortly after the games have concluded (I’m looking at you Rio), Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park provides a great example of how applying strategic “urban acupuncture” can create a successful legacy!
Design
Now it’s my time to nerd out! First of all, as a Texas A&M Aggie, it is my duty to inform you that this Olympic park was designed by an alumna of the landscape architecture program! That’s right! Mary Margret Jones, Fighting Texas Aggie class of 1979! She is the president of Hargreaves Associates, which worked in collaboration with LDA Design on the Olympic Park.
Of course, the nifty thing about this park is that the designers planned for how the park would be used post games! This means they programed the park around social, economic, and environmental benefits. When transforming the post-industrial area of the Lower Lea River Valley into the vibrant sustainable park it is now, several design program elements were implemented:
Open Spaces
- River Lea Restoration: A huge focus of the design of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was to give the River Lea a facelift! This area used to be a giant dumping ground! This caused poor water quality and environmental stress. Now, the wetlands have sculpted banks for beautiful views. Converting the industrial canals into a meandering river corridor achieved these scenic vantage points. Additionally, 300,000 wetland plants from Norfolk and Wales help create a natural flood defense for 5,000 properties.
- 2012 Gardens: As a visual representation of the 2012 Olympic Games, the 2012 garden features over 70,000 plants from countries that competed. Furthermore, the garden design features a natural planting scheme subdivided among the regions. The four subdivisions include Europe, North America, the Southern hemisphere, and Asia.
- Great British Garden: Similarly, the Great British Garden is a visual representation of the Olympic medals. As you walk through the garden, your journey will take you through the three Olympic medals: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
- Bronze: To begin, the bronze portion of the garden has vibrant red, orange, yellow, and other fiery color plants
- Silver: Next, the silver portion has silver paving surrounding a human sized sundial
- Gold: Finally, spiral planting leads to an immense Oak Tree from 1894 originating from the Kew Gardens.
- Park Meadow: The next green space at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is the park meadow. This area has swaths of wildflowers and a lawn for picnics that lead to the Olympic Rings.
- Mandivelle Place: Finally, Mandivelle Place Garden is a symbol for the Paralympics. Named after the original host of the Paralympics, this garden features a small orchard of fruit trees. The fruit trees produced a brand new variety of apple, the Paradice Gold, named after the values of the Paralympics.
Venues
- Arcelormittal Orbit: This stunning contemporary art sculpture also holds the title for the world’s longest and tallest tunnel slide! When you are at the top, you get stunning views of London. I didn’t get to go up while I was at the park, but it’s 100% on my bucket list!
- Copper Box Arena: While once home to many events during the Olympics, this venue is now a destination to workout, take group exercise classes, or watch a host of different events.
- Lee Valley Hockey & Tennis Center: This center offers 4 indoor & 6 outdoor tennis courts, as well as, a hockey arena that holds 3,000 spectators.
- Velopark: Whether it be track cycling, road racing, BMX, or any other two-wheeled event, you can get your ride on at the state of the art Velopark.
- London Aquatic Center: Love swimming? Well, why not swim at the home of Tom Daley, then! This aquatic center offers free swims, swimming & diving lessons, and other family fun in the pool.
- London Stadium: Now home to the West Ham United Football (soccer for the American’s out there) Club, this stadium was the center of the 2012 Olympic games at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. From the opening & closing ceremonies to watching Usain Bolt when gold, this stadium has made its mark in history.
Overall, when designing this Olympic park, the landscape architects gave a heavy emphasis on how the park could be in symbiosis with the surrounding area and be enjoyed for many years.
Transformation Plan
While many athletes spend their whole lives training for the Olympics, the truth is the games only last for two weeks. With that in mind, the IOC requires bidding cities to have a plan for the Olympic park post games. However, there aren’t many superb examples of cities following their post-game transformation plans. But, we wouldn’t be talking about Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park if that was the case.
London did an excellent job creating a vibrant park that can still be used today! By building much of the infrastructure specific to the games as temporary, the city could remove and replace it to be usable for everyday life. The Olympic park has created over 20,000 jobs in the area through tourism, built 10,000 new homes (a third of which are affordable), and helped connect a network of green spaces and trails through East London. The venues I previously mentioned are used to host various activities, including the Lond Grand Prix, Tour de France, and the UCI Track Cycling World Championships, just to name a few!
Visting The Park
Ok, now that you’re on a landscape architecture nerd high like me let me give you the run down on how to visit the park. The park is open 24 hours, all year round, so rain or shine you can come visit!
This tricky part, if you are a tourist, is actually getting to the park. I personally took one of the nine trains that had service directly to the park. The Station is part of the Westfield Shopping Center. Once you arrive at the station, you will want to take the escalator up one level, and cross a bridge, then you’ll be in the park! Side Note: The Westfield Shopping Center is brilliant! 10 out of 10 would recommend stopping there after exploring the park!
With just about 5 miles of trails to wander, definitely plan on wearing comfortable shoes if you are planning to explore the park! I may or may not still have scars from my blisters… To be fair, I was there from 9 am to 6:30 pm exploring! That’s a lot of walking!
Ok, so tell me the truth, did you know that landscape architecture played such a prominent role in the Olympics? Pretty cool, right?! I hope this post has inspired you to travel to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Whenever people ask me what my favorite place I saw in London was, this Olympic Park is always my answer! Let me know if you’ll be watching the Tokyo Olympics, and if so, what event is your favorite! See y’all next post!
Some pictures are not mine and are from Hargreaves Associates & Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park site and should be linked back to the original source.