The new Stratford City was the Athletes Village for the London 2012 Olympics. Located in the Lea Valley it entails the redevelopment of a vast brownfield site on the eastern edge of London. It was designed to accommodate 17,000 people during the Olympics in what will now become 3,800 permanent attached houses and apartments of varying sizes and types within a new urban precinct.
This precinct is influenced in form, articulation, materials and detailing by the traditional housing and better pre-war suburbs of London. Work entailed a major review of the masterplan and new design guidelines. It also included a major component of the Stage1 Architecture over two new city blocks, consisting of 660 apartments in 12 buildings (between 8–11 storeys) arranged around each block’ s perimeter.
The scale, budget and constrained timeframe for the project influenced an approach based on maximising repetition for economies of scale and efficiency, while allowing flexibility for an ordered diversity in expression to create desirable housing. It is a precinct designed for a safe and active street life, protected and highly useable open space, and with an easily identifiable open space hierarchy.
