New images have been released showing proposals for a redevelopment of the old Press and Broadcast Centres in the Olympic Park.
iCity will comprise a huge set of offices and studios for creative and digital startups to nurture their businesses. The plans also include a yard for events, pop-ups and street food vendors. A 1,000-seat auditorium will also be fitted out. Developers say the scheme will create over 7,500 jobs, 5,300 of them directly on-site, and a further 2,200 in the local community.
The plans, revised by architects Hawkins\Brown following public feedback, are now subject to planning application. If successful, work will begin next year with tenants arriving in 2015. Loughborough University, Hackney Community College and Infinity SDC have signed up for space, while BT Sport is already broadcasting from the area. The site will be fully operational from 2018.
The plans are certainly an improvement over the centre's first iteration (see the fifth image above). The Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment described the media centre as "deeply disappointing", showing a "paucity of imagination and analysis". Meanwhile, we described it as "a goat's arse of a building".