So architects Fletcher Priest, working with structural engineers Arup and landscape architects West8 and Vogt Landscape, were tasked with designing a village-like district with gardens evocative of the Victorian street layouts of areas of West London such as Maida Vale, incorporating 69 residential blocks, communal squares, courtyards and water features.
Criticism of the village’s “heritage”
In 2013, people began living in some of these now rented apartments in an area that has since been renamed the East Village, just outside the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which has also been renamed. However, the area has been widely criticised for its high rents: in 2022, rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the former athletes’ block will be more than £2,300 a month, and £2,700 for a three-bedroom apartment. London organisers have promised that the Olympic redevelopment of East London will create between 30,000 and 40,000 new homes, but the Guardian reports: Report in 2022 The redevelopment produced just 13,000 homes, and in the Olympic boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest there were around 75,000 families on waiting lists for social housing.
Other host cities have also faced harsh criticism for their legacies. “The Athens 2004 Summer Olympics Village consisted of 21 residential towers,” Epstein said. “After the Games, it was meant to become a new residential district, with accommodations sold or rented to local residents. However, only half of the apartments are currently occupied. When Rio hosted the Olympics in 2016, they wanted to emulate London. However, Rio’s village and 31 towers failed to produce a successful legacy, at least in the short term. The plan was to turn the towers into luxury condominiums, but most of them are vacant.”
