Here East is a media complex located in the

Olympic Park An Olympic Park is a sports campus for hosting the Olympic Games. Typically it contains the Olympic Stadium and the International Broadcast Centre. It may also contain the Olympic Village or some of the other sports venues, such as the aquatics ...

in East

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, built specially for the 2012 London Olympics. It is located at the site of the former

Hackney Wick Stadium Hackney Wick Stadium was a greyhound racing and speedway stadium located at Waterden Road in the London Borough of Hackney. Origins The site chosen for the stadium was on land known as Hackney Marshes west of the River Lea and on the west sid ...

close to the

Riverbank Arena The Riverbank Arena was a stadium in the Olympic Park, in Hackney Wick, London, United Kingdom, containing a water-based astroturf. History The Riverbank Arena was built with two venues for field-hockey competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics w ...

Hackney Wick Hackney Wick is a neighbourhood in east London, England. The area forms the south-eastern part of the district of Hackney, and also of the wider London Borough of Hackney. Adjacent areas of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets are sometimes a ...

. During the Olympics and Paralympics, the complex was named the London Olympics Media Centre. It was later refurbished and renamed to Here East.

History

London Olympics Media Centre

International Broadcast Centre, 14 June 2011 cropped

At the time of the Olympic bid it was intended that the complex would be privately financed on the basis that the building would have residual value from alternative uses after the games. As of December 2009, the

Olympic Delivery Authority The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) was a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, responsible for ensuring the delivery of venues, infrastructure and legacy for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games ...

had allocated £702 million of Programme and Funders’ contingency, largely to cover the decisions to publicly fund the Village and Media Centre after it became clear private funding could not be secured on acceptable terms during the 2008 to 2010 economic crisis. The complex was a 24-hour media hub that catered for over 20,000 broadcasters, photographers and print journalists facilitating broadcasts to 4 billion people worldwide. It contained an

International Broadcast Centre The International Broadcast Centre (IBC) is a temporary hub for broadcasters during major sport events. FIFA World Cup During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in Germany, the IBC in Munich was host to journalists from around 190 countries. The centre wa ...

(IBC) and a Main Press Centre (MPC). The design of the complex, which was long, was by

Allies and Morrison Allies and Morrison LLP is an architecture and urban planning practice based in London and Cambridge. Founded in 1984, the practice is now one of Britain's largest architectural firms. The practice's work ranges from architecture and interio ...

. It had a catering village and a

multi-storey car park A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

to link the two main venues (the IBC and the MPC) together. The construction cost was £355 million and the main contractor was

Carillion Carillion plc was a British multinational construction and facilities management services company headquartered in Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom, prior to its liquidation in January 2018. Carillion was created in July 1999, following a ...

. It was completed in July 2011.

Legacy

Following the games, the property firm Delancey formed a joint venture with Infinity SDC to convert the Olympic broadcast and press centre into a tech hub for corporations. The joint venture was called ''iCity'', with Laing O'Rourke being appointed to carry out the £150 million redevelopment of the Broadcasting Centre. Consultants

Buro Happold Buro Happold (previously ''BuroHappold Engineering'') is a British professional services firm that provides engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management, and consulting services for buildings, infrastructure, and the environment ...

provided the engineering design, working in collaboration with architects

Hawkins\Brown Hawkins\Brown Architects LLP is an architectural practice with studios in London and Manchester. History Roger Hawkins and Russell Brown set up Hawkins\Brown in 1988. In recent years Hawkins\Brown has won and been shortlisted for awards includ ...

. The complex was designed to create some of business space as part of the legacy of the games.

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...

started broadcasting from the centre in August 2013, and has three studios there. In February 2014 the site was renamed Here East. It went on to accommodate campuses for

Staffordshire University , mottoeng = Dare to know , type = Public , endowment = £70 million (2015) , administrative_staff = 1,375 , chancellor = Francis Fitzherbert, 15th Baron Stafford , vice_chancellor = Professor Martin Jones , ...

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when L ...

and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

as well as Plexal, a co-working location for start-up businesses.

References

External links

{{commonscat
Here East

BT Sport Studios

Here East - Mayor of London
Television studios in London Commercial buildings completed in 2011 2012 Summer Olympics Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hackney Mass media in London Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Hackney, London Olympic International Broadcast Centres