Selecting the Stratford site for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games provided an opportunity to regenerate a rundown area of historical industrial development and dereliction, as well as remediate the significant levels of contamination that had accumulated over a century and a half. The Olympic Delivery Authority established the enabling works project to clear the site and create the development platform on which the Olympic Park would be founded and to remediate the effects of contamination. This paper covers the geotechnical and geo-environmental aspects of the work, including site investigation, demolition and site clearance, bulk earthworks, soil remediation and groundwater treatment.

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The UK Olympic Delivery Authority is responsible for providing infrastructure to serve the biggest sporting event in the world and support the long-term regeneration of east London. The scale of development for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games presented an opportunity to implement a sustainable, low-carbondioxide development. This paper describes the scope of the utilities programme and the design and procurement strategies that were employed and identifies some of the challenges that have been overcome to deliver utilities infrastructure to a tight programme and with significant private-sector investment.

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The parklands and waterways are the natural, living heart of the Olympic Park in London. Their inception, design, delivery, management, maintenance and monitoring realised many innovative responses to the requirements of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as those of the many people who will live in and around the park after the games. This paper describes the brief and planning, statutory and biodiversity requirements for the project. It then describes design and delivery, from enabling works through to soils and planting, hard landscape, waterways, wetlands and flood protection. Procurement, contracts, cost and programme performance are considered. Finally, the paper presents key achievements and innovations in delivering an integrated landscape, built form and engineering infrastructure, the key challenges met and lessons learned.

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The Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is an iconic venue designed by acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid. It is dominated by a spectacular 11 000 m² wave-form roof supported on just two concrete cores to the north and a 22 m wall to the south. In games time, temporary wings augment the capacity to 17 500, including a permanent capacity of 2500 seats in legacy use. Foundation solutions were challenging due to the relatively high loadings, critical nature of maintaining horizontal pool tanks and new power line tunnels underneath. Over 150 000 t of concrete was poured using an innovative mix of 40% cement replacement and up to 76% recycled aggregate, resulting in significant savings in embodied carbon dioxide.

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This paper describes the innovative and complex process of planning and designing a major programme of temporary venues for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It sets out the unique challenges of designing high-quality temporary venues and at the same time meeting sustainability, technical and cost parameters. The paper explains the early decision-making process and key drivers that influenced the overall approach to deciding whether venues would be permanent, temporary or a mix of both. It also discusses some of the issues related to temporary as opposed to reusable, demountable or relocatable. The Basketball Arena is used as a case study to demonstrate how an innovative approach has delivered significant cost and programme benefits and to share the key lessons learned.

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