The 2012 Games were promoted as the ‘greenest ever’ and the sustainability aspirations for the legacy development were similarly ambitious.

Building sustainable and Resilient Communities

The 2012 Games were promoted as the ‘greenest ever’ and the sustainability aspirations for the legacy development were similarly ambitious.

The masterplan prepared by an AECOM-led consortium, took a pioneering approach to creating a sustainable new community anticipating the impacts of climate change.

With new parklands at the heart of the project, the landscape was established as a network of connected and ecologically rich green spaces including wildflower meadows and extensive tree planting. Drought-tolerant plants reduce water demand with varied habitats adding biodiversity.

Architectural design was modelled to anticipate heavy rainfall events and hotter summers, with materials and inbuilt natural shading specified to reduce the heat island effect. Now commonplace, QEOP was an early adopter of PVs and low-water use appliances, alongside a comprehensive sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) to capture and filter water to use in irrigation lowering demands of scarce resources.
The innovative Park-wide energy network ensured energy efficiency from the outset. 10 years later, decarbonisation of the grid has accelerated, and AECOM is working with Equans in a quest towards net zero energy.

One of the greatest successes has been the early promotion of sustainable ‘active travel’ with extensive walking routes through the park, connecting communities east and west to extensive public transport options. The network of cycling facilities – for all users – ensures QEOP is at the heart of the Lee Valley and East London.

A cornerstone of the legacy development at QEOP was to ensure that valuable land assets were used efficiently and their use adaptable to evolving community and market opportunities. The use of temporary Games venues and scalable structures ensured that this Olympic Park avoided ‘white elephants’, and facilities would be repurposed for legacy sporting and community use. Resilient infrastructure was designed with legacy capacities and functions in mind, avoiding wholesale redesign after the Games. Environmental assessments modelled different build-out scenarios and mitigations for the masterplan development ensuring the QEOP could adapt to meet needs over time.

The dynamic development of the QEOP continues at pace; as a sustainable and resilient quarter of the capital, building on the forward-looking and flexible original masterplanning principles. These will serve it well in the next stages of its life as it evolves to meet new environmental and social needs and expectations.

“At the outset the masterplan recognised that climate change would have unavoidable consequences for the way we live and must inform the design of this new London neighbourhood; forward-thinking approach for a scheme initiated two decades ago. It ensured environmental mitigation measures were embedded into the design requirements so the QEOP had resilience and flexibility to adapt over time.” Says Bill Hanway, Global Sports Sector Lead, AECOM.