If, like many of us, you’ve been watching the Olympics, you’ve been hearing the stories and profiles of many of the athletes. Here’s a back story you might not be familiar with, although in the last few days you’ve probably seen plenty of photos of the star: Olympic Park.
Four years ago the one-square-mile park, which now houses Olympic Stadium, the Aquatic Center, the Basketball and Water Polo Arenas, and other venues, as well as Olympic Village where the athletes are housed, was a contaminated brownfield site.
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| Riverbanks slope about 22 degrees, high enough to avoid high-tide floods. |
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| Two groves of rare wet woodlands are kept moist by low earthen embankments that overtop during high tide. |
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| A frog pond with loggeries (log pyramids that create insect habitat) |
Two miles of riverbanks were reengineered, and wetlands and new habitat were created on the site. More than 300,000 native plants from 47 species were planted along the river edge and wetlands to create new habitats for otters, kingfishers, grey herons, bees, lizards, frogs, and other birds, insects, amphibians, and reptiles.
A big part of the project was flood control. A flood risk assessment and detailed modeling helped determine the flood risk for the park and surrounding communities. This assessment helped determine the park’s shape, the slope of the riverbanks, and wetland landscaping approaches that would be incorporated. As a result of the work done to the park, more than 4,000 residences in east London are no longer in the floodplain.
An article coming up in our September issue describes the planning and construction of Olympic Park in much greater detail. The author is Mike Vaughan, an engineer with Atkins, who led the design of the park’s soft river edges and wetlands, including bank restoration and bioengineering.
The photos below, all courtesy of Atkins, show some of the park’s quieter areas and the work that was done there.