The Olympic and Legacy Masterplans have transformed a post-industrial backwater into a valuable ecological asset, the largest park created in London in 150 years.

Hosting the 2012 Olympics has been part of a longer journey to address longstanding divides in London's physical, environmental and social fabric. The Olympic and Legacy Masterplans have transformed a post-industrial backwater into a valuable ecological asset, the largest park created in London in 150 years. New east-west connections and a pragmatic approach to venue design is allowing for new neighbourhoods with thousands of homes to take root. And along the East Bank, the park will soon host the most significant collection of cultural and educational buildings to be built in Britain since the Victorian era.

Allies and Morrison’s work began in 2003 as one of a team of four consultants who developed a masterplan for a new Olympic Park for London’s successful bid to host the 2012 Games. The site was an elongated section of the Lower Lea Valley, where the River Lea flowing south into the Thames, has formed a divide separating the body of the city from its eastern extension. The masterplan strengthened links with the neighbouring railway connections of Stratford Station, which has since become Britain’s busiest railway station.

In a wider strategic context, the project was an opportunity to bridge long-standing inequalities between west and east London, and to redress this imbalance, the Games acting as a catalyst for a much larger project of urban change. Parkland and landscape have healed a damaged ecosystem with the River Lea's water quality greatly improved. A more complex and comprehensive network of connections have been implemented across the valley including a series of new bridges.

A series of 'fringe' masterplans were prepared to explore how neighbouring areas could be improved and further integrated into the park and vice versa. New predominantly residential, neighbourhoods now surround the park, each of these designed to look out as well as in, forming explicit connection with their adjacent parts of the city. By 2031, there will be tens of thousands of people living in these neighbourhoods; Chobham Manor, East Wick, Sweetwater and Pudding Mill.

London's experience has proved to be a model for other cities seeking to host the Olympic Games in responsible and sustainable ways, providing an opportunity to take a far more radical and comprehensive approach to an area's transformation, setting in motion the creation of a new piece of city.