Design for London's 2012 bid includes largest urban park to be built in Europe for two centuries.
EDAW's masterplan for London's 2012 Olympic bid, unveiled this week, envisages the creation of the largest urban park in Europe for 200 years.

More than half of the facilities for the games will be packed on to a 500-acre Lea Valley site, including the main stadium and Olympic village. This will be surrounded by green land extending from Hackney and Stratford in the north to Canning Town in the south, with a total area of 1500 acres.

The masterplan includes:

  • An 80,000-seater stadium at Marshgate Lane in the centre of the "Olympic Precinct"
  • A 17,000-capacity Olympic village near Stratford understood to be planned with developer Chelsfield
  • A major bridge over the A12 in the north of the scheme.

Jason Prior, managing director of EDAW and team leader for the bid, said the scheme would sit either side of the River Lea – a tributary of the Thames – which would have 200 bridges of varying size over it.

He said: "The idea is to have the sports and facilities on the high ground each side of the river. The bridges will connect the main stadium to the Olympic village."

EDAW, whose team includes Foreign Office Architects, also revealed "legacy" plans to link the entire site to the Thames Gateway urban growth area after the games. Many of the Olympic facilities would be converted to create up to 40,000 homes by 2020.

Keith Mills, chief executive of London 2012, the body in charge of the bid, refused to say what would happen to the main stadium after the games. However, he revealed that Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham and Charlton football clubs had been approached as possible tenants.