London's Olympic Park & Zaha Hadid

In 2013 I did a walking tour of the Olympic Park in London. One year after the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012 in London, the venue started opening up for visitors and sports people. The area is being transformed into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

A small area of parkland in the northern area of the Park reopened at the end of July 2013, along with The Copper Box arena. This means sports people, nature enthusiasts as well as those just wanting a green area can go and enjoy the place.

The Copper Box has the huge letters RUN along the front of the building. During the Olympics it was known as the Handball Arena. Now a multi-sport venue open to the public. There is a gym and badminton courts and it is also available for concerts and corporate events.

The main purpose of this blog was when I heard the news on 31 March 2016 that the famous architect Zaha Hadid had died. She was an award wining Iraqi-British architect and had designed the London Aquatics Centre. Her buildings are characterized by strong curving forms and this certainly works well on the flowing features of the aquatics centre.

The aquatics centre contains two Olympic size 50-m pools as well as a diving pool.