Location: London, United Kingdom.

Architect: HawkinsBrown.

Here East is a 1.2 million sq ft space for the creative and digital industries, located on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The former Press and Broadcast Centres were transformed into a flexible workspace designed to promote collaboration between start-ups and more established businesses, with universities co-located to stimulate innovation through their research and development programmes. The site offers a diverse range of spaces, from a data centre, broadcast studios and innovation centre to new cafes and individual artists’ studios. The building was designed to maximise natural daylight, ventilation and views, with glazed curtain walling featuring a ‘dazzle’ pattern frit carefully tuned to the required solar performance. The site is shared between various University College London (UCL) departments, including the Bartlett School of Architecture, and Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. Here East is innately sustainable due to retaining and reusing most of the existing structure, building envelope and main HVAC systems designed as the Olympic Media Hub for the 2012 Games. The project savours key sustainable elements of the original project such as the photovoltaic panels integrated with the living roof on the Press Centre to generate electricity and to encourage local biodiversity. The regeneration of the site ties in with the legacy of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by connecting into existing sustainable transport and energy system connections and charging up the public realm. The provision of retail and restaurant facilities creates a lively and fun destination for passers-by. Here East favours independent businesses to stimulate the local economy and place more focus on local produce. The Press Centre’s vast first floor roof terrace is planted with fruit bearing trees and this fruit is already being used by the cafes and restaurants below. Here East was conceived, enabled and delivered within five years from initial expression of interest to project delivery. The project was designed in collaboration with the Built Environment Access Panel, set up to ensure Olympic legacy projects are inclusive and accessible; disability charity Scope are now tenants. Here East has met targets for local employment and through Loughborough University on-site, so far 20 young people from the local community are studying for a masters level degree for free.

Photo credit: Jason Hawkes, Rory Gardiner, GG Archard, Tim Crocker.