While the architecture of the London Olympic games certainly won the U.K. a lot of press, there seemed to be a real famine of coverage on the Games' highly successful landscape architecture. Nearly 250 acres were turned into a spectacular setting. According to John King, Hon. ASLA, architecture critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, that success was due to a team of landscape architecture firms, including U.K.-based LDA Design and U.South.-based landscape architecture firm, Hargreaves Assembly, who came in at the proverbial final minute to update the master plan in key spots, along with English planting designers Nigel Dunnett, Sarah Price, and James Hitchmough.

King reports that the Olympic Delivery Authorisation in the U.G. "wasn't happy with the open infinite elements" of their chief plan. George Hargreaves, FASLA, said to King: "The client told us, 'We've got this product, we don't like information technology, we're non certain why.'"

Working with LDA Pattern, Hargreaves changed the planned river, creating "wider and more than natural banks," which were so cloaked in a body of water of greenery, including a wildflower meadow planted by Dunnett and his colleagues. (The meadow, an iconic English language landscape, is said to be the largest ever planted in the U.Grand).


As well, King reports, the plazas in the master plan were reduced in size in order to create space for new hillocks, or what Hargreaves called "sculptural tectonic forms." These hillocks provide a platform for visitors to see the city, beyond the Olympic Village, and also help create a "softening" of the transition from the decorated avenues packed with throngs of visitors.



On their Web site, Hargreaves says the program developed with LDA Design "restores a river and transforms old industrial land, much of it contaminated through years of industrial fail" into 100 hectares of parklands. Furthermore, the design was inspired by "the Victorian and post-war pleasure and festival gardens."


LDA Design says the masterplan provided a solid foundation for the entire site, helping brand the London Olympics ane of the more sustainable ones to engagement. "The hr-glass shape of the Olympic Park naturally divides the park into a 'wilder' green northern half, The N Park and a more urban S Park. The previously canalised River Lea has been transformed into a iii dimensional mosaic of new habitats – wetland, swales, wet woodland, dry woodland and meadow – that together form an absorbent flood-command measure. Specific habitats and wildlife installations accept been integrated into the design to support central species identified in the Olympic Park Biodiversity Activity Programme, such as Kingfisher, Sandmartin and European eel."


Dunnett, ane of the planting designers, added more about the specifics of the planting approach: "The Olympic Park comprises two different character areas: the Northward Park which has a more extensive and informal grapheme, and the Due south Park, which includes the main Olympic Stadium and has a more urban grapheme. Plantings in the Northward Park largely represent designed versions of native habitats and celebrate native biodiversity. They include species-rich meadows of different types; wetland plantings, including pelting gardens and bioswales; woodland underplantings, and dramatic perennial 'lens plantings.' Plantings in Due south Park focus on visual drama and have a strong horticultural basis. They include the 2012 Gardens, Display Meadows and the 'Fantasticology' art installation."



King says the city, at least the local design printing, was thrilled by the park. LDA Design's Web site lists a whole set of positive critical reviews, including i by Kieran Long, Evening Standard: "The existent star of the Olympic site is the landscape design. It'due south simply beautiful, with borders packed with mixed wildflowers, all blooming gaily thanks to the wet conditions. Its hillocks and valleys, ordered by the waterways that run north–southward through the park, brand it a unique place, and give a season of what will be a wonderful public space subsequently the Games."

The London Olympics simply ended with a bang and so the landscape will now become public parkland. According to LDA, the park will be expanded, reopening as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2014. A 55-acre slice of that bonanza of a project will go to who else simply James Corner Field Operations, designers of the High Line and winners of the Chicago Pier design contest.

See lots more than photos of the Olympic landscape.

Prototype credits: (1) Nigel Dunnett, (2) Andy Harris, Hargreaves Associates, (3-4) Nigel Dunnett, (five) Peter Neal, Hargreaves Associates, (6) Master program concept, LDA Design, Nigel Dunnett, Hargreaves Assembly, (7-8) Nigel Dunnett.