Yudu - RIBA September 2011

Analysis | Olympics | White Water Centre

BELOW: A café terrace on the first floor roof of the visitors’ centre overlooks the conveyor belt on one side and the start of the rapids on the other.

IN DETAIL

Architect: FaulknerBrowns Olympic use: Canoe slalom Legacy use: What do you mean legacy? The Olympics is just a tiny blip in the programme of white water rafting and canoeing – commercial and elite level Best thing: Public access, line of the building Worst thing: Threadbare temporary landscape, loo capacity swamped by unexpected popularity

to the schedule of resubmitting it for planning should extra capital come along. The client had been working on the idea since 1999 but Olympic 2012 funding clinched the scheme. The black C section with its timber cladding

seems more expensive than it was, designed as floating in an undulating landscape. With wet spaces below and a higher spec café, meetings rooms and terrace above, it makes good use of left over spaces. The 5.5m drop required by the 300m course has left a large area for storage while the terrace that overlooks the start pool is essentially a timber decked roof. Once the Olympics depart, the Lee Valley

Park Authority will spend £4m on a lot of landscaping and, no doubt, some tinkering to the loos and catering to make the most of its unexpected success. Hopefully it can also make the most of its open approach for its other venues, the Velodrome and Eton Manor. n

IN NUMBERS: 1,725m2 1 3 2 4 7 2 5

SITE PLAN

1 : Competition course 2 : Start pool 3 : Visitors’ centre 4 : Lake 5 : Intermediate course 6 : Station Road 7: Lee Navigation

300m competition course, 15m3 10,000m2

building,103,250m2 lake

site, £20m value of project; 12,000 capacity on temporary stands; of water per second; 160m intermediate and training course;