Zaha Hadid Architects' London Aquatics Centre celebrates over 2.5 million visitors since opening to the public in 2014. Celebrating its 3rd anniversary, ZHA has announced that more than 2.5 million people have visited the former Olympic venue since it opened its doors to the public in 2014. 

London's Aquatics Centre has quickly established itself as a world-class sporting venue at the heart of its community. ZHA designed double-curvature geometry to create a structure of parabolic arches that define its form. The roof undulates to differentiate the volumes of the competition and diving pools, and extends beyond the pool hall envelope to cover the external areas of the podium and entrance on the bridge.

Visitor numbers continue to rise each year, and have grown by 47% since March 2016, notes Zaha Hadid Architects. Over 14,000 people visit the Aquatics Centre on average each week, with school, club, regional and national meets throughout the year. The London Aquatics Centre demonstrates how the Olympic and Paralympic legacy is being fulfilled every day.          

4,500 children and adults are learning the essential life-skill of swimming each week with the centre’s ‘Swim School’ programme, as well as learning to dive with the Tom Daley Diving Academy.

50 different local schools and clubs use the Aquatics Centre for their swimming lessons, enabling thousands more school children to learn to swim. The centre encourages  participation by everyone in its community with many different programmes such as family ‘Extreme Aqua Splash’ and ‘This Girl Can Swim’ sessions.

''The London Aquatics Centre was designed for its legacy to the city. With so many Londoners now using the centre to learn how to swim and dive, for competitive training and club events, for family and recreational swim sessions, as well as fitness and wellbeing classes, the Aquatics Centre is an excellent legacy of London 2012,'' said Zaha Hadid Architects.

Voted by visitors to the London Olympic and Paralympic Games as the best venue of London 2012, the past three years have seen the London Aquatics Centre make its mark on the national and international stage, hosting a number of major sporting events including the FINA Diving World Series, National Paralympic Day, Invictus Games, the British Swimming Championships and the 2016 LEN European Aquatics Championships.

The London Aquatics Centre is also used as an elite training venue and is the training home of Olympic medallist Tom Daley.

''The London Aquatics Centre is an inspiring and important legacy venue. Its remarkable attendance figures from both local communities and across the country demonstate the centre is helping more and more people stay active and healthy,'' said Peter Bundey, Deputy Managing Director at GLL, the charitable social enterprise that operate the London Aquatics Centre under the Better brand.

''This fantastic venue is also fulfilling its vital role as a national and international home for swimming and diving, with resident high performance aquatic programmes and major aquatic events,'' Peter Bundey added.

''We are delighted to report that our partnership with the LLDC is showing that the Olympic legacy is alive and well at the London Aquatics Centre. We have record numbers of people of all ages and backgrounds learning to swim and dive, Olympic athletes such as Tom Daley using the facility as their training base and spectators coming to watch both local and major sporting events.''

To celebrate the anniversary, the London Aquatics Centre will held an Open Day on Saturday, 4th March offering children and adults ‘Come Try Diving’ sessions, ‘Racing Starts Drop-ins’ and a swimming ‘Stroke Clinic Drop-in’, as well as activities away from the pool with Pilates and Dance Taster sessions available and fitness challenges with prizes for the winners. 

London Aquatics Centre gym members can also bring a buddy to train with for free on the day.

The architectural concept of the London Aquatics Centre is inspired by the fluid geometry of water in motion, creating spaces and a surrounding environment in sympathy with the river landscape of the Olympic Park. 

An undulating roof sweeps up from the ground as a wave - enclosing the pools of the Centre with its unifying gesture of fluidity, whilst also describing the volume of the swimming and diving pools. 

The London Aquatics Centre is designed to have the flexibility to accommodate the size and capacity of the London 2012 Olympic Games whilst also providing the optimum size and capacity for use in Legacy mode after the 2012 Games.

The Aquatics Centre is planned on an orthogonal axis perpendicular to the Stratford City Bridge. Along this axis are laid out the three pools. The training pool is located under the bridge whilst the competition and diving pools are within a large volumetric pool hall. 

The overall strategy is to frame the base of the pool hall as a podium by surrounding it and connecting it into the bridge.

All images © Hufton + Crow  

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