The London 2012 Olympics including the Olympic Stadium at Stratford, 2012 Olympic games, the orbit Tower sculpture and the legacy use of the infrastructure such as West Ham United football club moving to the olympic stadium
|
Here’s the mid May time capsule including photos from the Kew temporary garden outside the British museum, goslings at Alexandra Lake, Wanstead Flats and the London Orbit Tower.
|
There’s a bloody great helicopter Warship moored in the Thames at Greenwich!
When I surfaced at Greenwich on Thursday, there were two remarkable ships on view. The newly reburbished and reopened Cutty Sark is looking great now, with all the scaffolding and stuff gone, so you can see the glass building that surrounds the bottom half of the hull as it should be seen. With a slight lengthwise curve to the roof, the old ship has an impression of movement, more like she’s back sailing on the water than when it was just sunk in a darkened concrete hole of a dry dock.
Lynx helicopter
And out on the river Thames itself, before embarking the motor cruiser to see the Cable Car Crossing and the Thames Barrier, the scene is dominated by an enormous grey warship. From the waterside, the shape of HMS Ocean is disorientating. The superstructure is asymetrical, and the main hull looks like it’s been sliced lengthways, revealing two big holes at the side. Seeing the platform jutting out on the port side, it looks a bit like a traditional aircraft carrier, but it isn’t. It’s a helicopter ship, carrying eight Lynx helicopters there to patrol the no fly zone during the London 2012 Olympics.
HMS Ocean at Greenwich
According to information I looked up later, there are both Army and Navy Lynx helicopters onboard, as well as serving as a base for anti terrorist units during the period of the Games. Greenwich is used to seeing large Navy ships moored in the Thames, such as HMS Illustrious last year.
Combined Operations badge
Orbit Tower (ArcelorMittal Orbit) #2
20110302 work-in-progress. The Orbit Tower will be one of the attractions in the London 2012 Olympic Park. There will be two viewing platforms accessible by elevator. Sculptor: Anish Kapoor, Structural Designer: Cecil Balmond. Design and Engineering: Ove Arup. The controversial red tubular steel tower will be 115m tall and completion is due in spring 2012. London Borough of Newham.
Image: George Rex Photography)
Video show the construction well underway of the Orbit Tower at the London 2012 Olympic Park site in Stratford East London.
The 115m tall art sculpture with a public viewing platform is formally named the Arcelor Mittal Orbit, and will be 22m higher than New York’s Statue of Liberty when completed, which looks like a matter of weeks as the pr-constructed iron pieces can be seen waiting on the site ready to be welded into place. Further pictures and videos of the growing installation will be uploaded over the coming period.
Planning applications for a new London cable car crossing over the Thames linking 2012 Olympic venues in east London have been submitted by Transport for London. TfL has submitted the plans to both Newham and Greenwich borough councils proposing that a London Cable Car station be built a few hundred metres from the O2 arena. The scheme, which it is hoped will be in operation by 2012, is designed to cut journey times between the arena and the ExCel exhibition centre – both of which will be venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
More information and video:
Here’s the impressionistic video to give an idea of what the ride on the London cable car will feel like from Summer 2012. It’s going to be called the Emirates Air Line by the way.
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
