Your legacy build: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park through model making

Monday 08 August 2022

Architect
Atomik Architecture

Your legacy build: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park through model making

Image 1: Newham in 1741, Image 2: Newham in 1896, Image 3: Newham in 1990, Image 4: Newham in 2023.

As part of Newham Heritage Month 2022: What London 2012 Means to Us, Atomik Architecture were awarded a grant to research the historic, current and potential urban grain of the Olympic Park in Newham. The project, Your Legacy Build, involved researching in the local archives, working with local primary schools and a final event which encouraged young people to generate new interventions for the Olympic Park.

Image 1: Louis taking photos of the historic maps kept at Newham Archives, Image 2: Kimberley sorting through the maps kept at Newham Archives.

To kick off Atomik Architecture’s research Louis and Kimberley visited Newham Archives in Stratford Library. At the archives, with the guidance of Jess the archivist, they were able to look through and photograph some of the historic maps kept there.

Image: London 1741 John Rouque Map.

Using a combination of the historic maps from the archives and historic maps found on online archives, Louis, with the help of the rest of the team at Atomik Architecture, began the process of scaling the maps, creating and carving the bases before starting to craft and colour code the buildings by uses.

Image 1: The 1741 model base after being carved and painted, Image 2: A group of buildings after being spray painted.

A series of four massing models were created that show Newham in 1741, 1896, 1990 and 2023. The buildings have been colour coded with white as residential, blue as industrial, bright orange as commercial, pink as mixed-use and red as cultural, educational or place of interest.

Image 1: Newham in 1741, Image 2: Newham in 1896, Image 3: Newham in 1990, Image 4: Newham in 2023.

Image 1: Newham in 1741, Image 2: Newham in 1896, Image 3: Newham in 1990, Image 4: Newham in 2023.

Image 1: Newham in 1741, Image 2: Newham in 1896, Image 3: Newham in 1990, Image 4: Newham in 2023.

In addition to making the massing models Kimberley, Sandhya and Jenny from Atomik, went into St Francis Catholic Primary School and Park Primary School to run a workshop talking about the role of an architect and the historic built environment of Newham. Using a mixture of models, maps and images they discussed the legacy of the Olympics in London before challenging the year 4 and 5 pupils to act as an architect with the task of sketching out a design for their own intervention for the Olympic Park today.

Image: Sandhya talking to a group of year 5 pupils about the 1741 and 2023 models showing Newham’s built environment.

“A well organised and reflective session which opens the eyes and minds of the children to the possibilities of architecture” – (Mr Ttoffali - Blended Learning Lead/ Language Lead/ Year 5 Lead at Park Primary School).

Image: A pair of year 4 pupils sketching ideas for interventions for the Olympic Park.

On Saturday 25th of June, as a culmination of school workshops, Atomik undertook a series of family workshops, where participants were asked to model their own intervention for the Olympic Park.

Over 5 hours, around 40 children and their parents/guardians let their imagination run free with the most fantastic results. Ideas ranged from slides, water parks, cat hotels, artist workshops, dinosaurs and a floating music venue!

The whole process was inspiring, and it was lovely to see the thoughts and creations from the next generation.