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The Olympic Park has become a wilderness – and that's the intention The Olympic Park has become a wilderness – and that's the intention
(about 4 hours later)
In London's Olympic Park one year on, knotted balls of tumbleweed lie scattered across overgrown grass, while the broken branches of dead trees poke jaggedly into the sky. It may sound like the worst nightmare of the legacy tsars but in the adventure landscape of the new Queen Elizabeth Park wilderness is precisely the intention. In London's Olympic Park one year on, knotted balls of tumbleweed lie scattered across overgrown grass, while the broken branches of dead trees poke jaggedly into the sky. It may sound like the worst nightmare of the legacy tsars, but in the adventure landscape of the new Queen Elizabeth Park, wilderness is precisely the intention.
"We wanted to make something that would tell the story of the Lea valley – in miniature," says Susanne Tutsch of Erect Architecture, the young east London practice that has designed the playground and community building for the new park, which opens this weekend. A series of pumps and dams allow children to direct water across a rugged hillside of boulders, where winding rivulets become harder machine-cut channels, mimicking the valley's industrial canalisation. An elaborate sandpit, complete with pulleys and baskets to convey loads to and fro, encourages aspiring Bob the Builders to create their own vision of East End regeneration. "We wanted to make something that would tell the story of the Lea valley – in miniature," says Susanne Tutsch of Erect Architecture, the young east London practice that has designed the playground and community building for the new park, which opens this weekend. A series of pumps and dams allow children to direct water across a rugged hillside of boulders, where winding rivulets become harder, machine-cut channels, mimicking the valley's industrial canalisation. An elaborate sandpit, complete with pulleys and baskets to convey loads to and fro, encourages aspiring Bob the Builders to create their own vision of East End regeneration.
Thickets of birch and hazel, whose rods have been woven into dens, progress through to a forest world of scots pine, where the play takes on a more daring bent. Elaborate rope walkways stretch between gnarled tree trunks and cocoons of knotted branches provide vertiginous lookout points. It is a vision of twisted, tangled structures that could be straight from the The Wicker Man – a slightly menacing look that will no doubt appeal to young minds.Thickets of birch and hazel, whose rods have been woven into dens, progress through to a forest world of scots pine, where the play takes on a more daring bent. Elaborate rope walkways stretch between gnarled tree trunks and cocoons of knotted branches provide vertiginous lookout points. It is a vision of twisted, tangled structures that could be straight from the The Wicker Man – a slightly menacing look that will no doubt appeal to young minds.
"Playgrounds should be for proper risk-taking," says co-designer Jeanette Emery-Wallis of Land Use Consultants, "and getting dirt under your fingernails." There is a refreshing lack of health and safety obstruction around the sheer drops, rope swings and the four-metre-high fireman's pole."Playgrounds should be for proper risk-taking," says co-designer Jeanette Emery-Wallis of Land Use Consultants, "and getting dirt under your fingernails." There is a refreshing lack of health and safety obstruction around the sheer drops, rope swings and the four-metre-high fireman's pole.
Elsewhere, in between the temporary events tents that will be a hallmark of this park from now on, the landscape is looking refreshingly overgrown, softening what was something of a manicured Teletubby land during the Olympics. The reeds of the naturalised riverbanks are already providing a home for nesting swans and kingfishers, while the wildflower meadows have erupted with weeds – benefiting from a suspension of the enthusiastic games-time gardening. 4,000 extra trees are in the process of being planted, with the hope this northern half will become something of a rambling woodland. Elsewhere, in between the temporary events tents that will be a hallmark of this park from now on, the landscape is looking refreshingly overgrown, softening what was something of a manicured Teletubby-land during the Olympics. The reeds of the naturalised riverbanks are already providing a home for nesting swans and kingfishers, while the wildflower meadows have erupted with weeds – benefiting from a suspension of the enthusiastic games-time gardening. Four thousand extra trees are in the process of being planted, with the hope this northern half will become something of a rambling woodland.
The place has a scrubby vigour that is almost reminiscent of the feral banks of the old Lea, former home to piles of car tyres – which in a poetic twist of fate have returned in the playground, shredded, to provide a soft landing for over-ambitious leaps. The place has a scrubby vigour that is almost reminiscent of the feral banks of the old Lea, former home to piles of car tyres – which, in a poetic twist of fate, have returned in the playground, shredded, to provide a soft landing for over-ambitious leaps.
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