Eton Manor will form the northern gateway to the 2012 London Olympic Park. The site has long been associated with community sport, having originally been set up in the early 20th century by Old Etonians for the benefit of young East End residents.
During the Games it will become the location of Olympic and Paralympics aquatics training facilities and host 10,500 spectators for the wheelchair tennis during Paralympics. Afterwards, in ‘legacy mode’, it will become a community sports facility, owned and operated by Lee Valley Regional Parks Authority, with a Centre for excellence in tennis and hockey plus other facilities including five-a- side football pitches, mountain bike trails and community allotments.
Stanton Williams was commissioned to devise an accessible, sustainable masterplan, which would reconcile these uses, each with its own precise functional requirements. The practice has also designed the site’s main building and legacy hockey stadium for 3000 spectators, as well as overseeing the development of the temporary venues.
The key to the future success of the site is the provision of an exceptional legacy venue. Design work therefore began with consideration of the ways in which the site will ultimately be used in legacy mode and the production of a coherent, integrated scheme that would not only deliver the required facilities but which would also engage with the surrounding community and would form an inspiring gateway to the Olympic Park. From this end-point, attention was then given to the uses to which the site will be put during the Olympics and Paralympics, and to the ways in which these uses can be accommodated with a minimum of transformation. The mantra was always: ‘build it once’. Nonetheless, the scheme has been conceived so that each phase is architecturally resolved in its own right, allowing the various elements of the scheme to be easily understood as part of a coherent whole.
A particular concern was the site’s relationship with its context. During the course of the twentieth century, Eton Manor had become somewhat cut off from its surroundings, bounded to the south and east by major roads and a railway, and hidden to the north from Ruckhold Road by a brick wall. Particular emphasis was therefore given to re-connecting Eton Manor with the locality in recognition of its gateway role and its potential to bring the language of the Olympic Park to the surrounding community. The site’s topography has been significantly re-shaped with over 40,000 tonnes of reclaimed soil to aid legibility and accessibility, creating better visual and physical links with the streets to the north and also the bridges, which connect Eton Manor to the Olympic Park and Hackney Marshes. Pedestrian and vehicle routes have been overlaid onto this manipulated landscape, as have buildings. The main hockey pitch, meanwhile, has been conceived as a bowl carved into the ground. The result is a layered landscape, with the site transformed by a series of temporary and permanent additions.
The permanent internal accommodation takes the form of a double storey spine that physically and visually locks together the hockey stadium to the west and indoor tennis to the east. Running into the space below the tiered seating of the hockey stadium, the principal changing rooms are placed at its lower level, and are designed for flexible use, with particular emphasis on accessibility and provision for groups requiring separate facilities for cultural reasons.
The upper part of the tiered seating connects with the first floor of the accommodation building, which hosts’ spectator toilet and multi-faith facilities, bar/function room, a gallery overlooking the indoor tennis hall and an outdoor terrace.
The architectural language of the Sports Centre takes into account the specific security and durability requirements that both the Games and Legacy environment demand. It is driven from a desire for an architecture that is integral with the landscape.
The concrete that forms the hockey stadium extends to create the base of the Accommodation building. Using a boardmarked finish to this material adds a further layer of detail and texture and attempts to form a relationship with the new planted forest to the south of the building. This treatment is read in context with the Western Red Cedar rainscreen cladding of the interlocking rectangular tennis hall. The use of boardmarking also has a practical advantage in overcoming the potential workmanship issues that arise when using a highly sustainable mix of concrete with a significant amount of replacements included.
The tennis hall is fabricated from a series of off site formed timber cassette wall and roof panels that are constructed around a series of glulam roof beams. Spanning 40m and with a depth of 2.45m, these are currently the largest single span glulam beams in Europe. During the Games this hall is used for Athlete and Olympic family accomodation. Generally services are exposed throughout, so as to satisfy Games security issues, allow for the flexibility required by LOCOG and to enable easy maintenance and manipulation by LVRPA in the future.
During the Games the legacy arrangements facilitate the temporary tennis stadiums and Aquatics Training Facility with ease and cohesion. The Centre Court, holding 5000 spectators, is constructed in the legacy hockey bowl with temporary seating stands tying back to the legacy terraces and surrounding concourse. The remaining 8 courts and associated seating are located to the east of the indoor tennis hall and situated in locations that will enable 6 outdoor courts to be in use post Games. 3000 of the Games seats will be re-instated into their legacy positions for the Hockey stadium.
The temporary aquatics facility, believed to be the largest of it’s type in the world (with 3 x 50m lane pools, a synchronized pool and a water polo pool all under one roof) is designed to enable step and ramp free access without the need for excavation. Associated temporary changing facilities are also provided that cater for both disabled and non-disabled athletes and associated parties. All equipment used for this facility will eventually make it’s way back onto the global hire market.
In essence, the transformation of Eton Manor is bound up with its future, in terms of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and then in legacy mode. But its role as a community venue, something that will be assured by the new facilities and by its improved physical engagement with its surroundings, is in many ways related to the original Etonians’ conception of the site for community sports. In this way, the transformed site builds firmly on its heritage.
Client team
Client: Olympic Delivery Authority Delivery Partner / Project Mangers: CLM Quantity Surveyor: CLM Employers Technical Reviewers
Architecture – B3 Burgess Structure - Mott McDonald Services - SKM
Legacy end user: Lee Valley Regional Parks Authority - LVRPA
Key Areas
Site: 146,590 sqm / 36 Acres / 1,577,881 sqft
Sports Centre: Accom building = 2,253 sqm / Tennis Hall = 3,349 sqm: Total = 5,602 sqm
ATF: Pool Hall = 7,907 sqm / Changing facilities: 736 sqm: Total 8,630sqm Pool dimensions : 3no lane 50 x 25 x 2m / waterpolo 33 x 21 x 2m / Synchronised swimming 30 x 20 x 3m
Design Team
Masterplanner: Stanton Williams
VENUES
Architect: Stanton Williams
Structure / Civil Engineering / M,E and P / Fire / Lighting / Accessibility / Facades / Security / IT/Comms / Crowd Modelling / Acoustic Engineering / Field of Play Specialist / Town Planning consultant / CDM Coordinator: ARUP
Catering: King Design
Overlay consultant: Alpinex
BREEAM: Southfacing
