Designed as a wave on its riverside site, the centre hosted the 2012 Olympic aquatics events. Now welcoming a million visitors a year and teaching almost 4,000 children to swim each week.

The centre’s two 50-metre pools and diving pool hosted the aquatics events of the London 2012 Olympics; temporary stands giving a spectator capacity of 17,000. After the 2012 Games, these stands were removed to significantly decrease the building’s volume and the centre was converted for use by its local community. Ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), a waste by-product of the steel industry, substituted 70% of the cement used to build the centre, with 80% of aggregates from recycled sources.