Nice Stadium For Ducks

By london_ken Last edited 230 months ago
Nice Stadium For Ducks
Aquatic Centre - Exterior.jpg

The award-winning Zaha Hadid was today announced as the designer of London's Olympic Aquatics Centre. Which may or may not be the plain old London Aquatics Centre, depending on whether we get the 2012 Olympics. Either way, it will be built.

The building looks very nice, but they always do when they're computer-generated. Architects are hardly likely to submit pictures of something looking dank, grotty, litter-strewn and swathed in graffiti, are they? According to Red Ken's press release, the centre has "has a spectacular, sinuous S-shaped roof inspired by the flow of water, that is certain to make it a London landmark".

Londonist suffers from using rubbish monitors in the office so can't quite see it ourselves but see if your imagination fares better: you can see the designs for yourself, as high-resolution images of the exterior and the interior of the proposed stadium are available for download directly from the story on the London2012.com website.

The Aquatics Centre will have two 50m competition pools as well as a diving pool. In the long run, it's said that the design can be easily converted and the pools divided so that people of all abilities may share the pool without winding each other up. This is good news for the likes of Londonist - we're sick of sharing the one proper training lane at our out-sourced council pool with lovey-dovey couples hogging the lanes while they chat, side by side, doing a breast-stroke designed to keep their hair dry, not for fitness.

Hydrophobic residents of East London need not miss out either, as the intention is to convert the centre to include a health and fitness area.

A warning: if you visit the architect's website it would appear that whatever design sensibilities won her the 2004 Laureate for the Pritzker Architects Prize were ignored when putting together the navigation menu on the website.

Last Updated 31 January 2005