London does not often build homes on this scale. With 2,800 units in one go, the Olympic Village is up there with Sir John Nash's creation of
In terms of size it also compares with the
Heygate and Aylesbury Estates in Southwark, two notorious works of the Sixties and Seventies that are facing demolition.
The big question is which will it be: Regent's Park or the Aylesbury?
The Olympic Delivery Authority says the Village is "gold medal winning" and points to its high levels of sustainable design, previously unattained with buildings of this height.
It points to the involvement of 12 leading architects in the design.
Yet the images suggest aboveaverage developers' housing rather than something world-beating.
The Village is made up of big square blocks, forbidding and repetitive, marching across the landscape.
There is a robotic air, reflecting the fact that the buildings would be built out of factory-made elements and to standardised plans to meet the
demanding deadlines of 2012.
The 12 architects' roles have been largely
restricted to arranging the cladding in more-or-less pleasing patterns.
The success of the Village will depend hugely on the landscaping, which slopes gradually down into
pools of water, to soften and humanise it.
What the Village does not do is set standards. It does equal Hammarby Sjostad, the development that grew out of Stockholm's unsuccessful bid
for the 2004 Olympics, whose supersustainable
principles are followed all over the world.
Like most of 2012's buildings it is competent, efficient, not-too-bad. It is bronze rather than gold. Compared with the Aylesbury and Regent's
Park, it is somewhere in between.
