community/cultural
Allies and Morrison with LDA Design, 2025
Carpenters Road, E20 2AR
what3words: violin.track.friend
The Stratford Waterfront masterplan unites V&A East Museum, UAL: London College of Fashion, the BBC Music Studios, and Sadler’s Wells East into London’s most significant cultural district for 150 years. This walking tour will share the story behind the masterplan and the 1.5ha of new landscape delivered, which has created a welcoming public space and broadened access to culture for all.
Stratford International, Hackney Wick
241
Meeting Point: Outside Sadler's Wells East on the south side, at upper ground level. Nearest Underground station: Stratford.
Blue badge parking spaces are available on Carpenters Road to the north side of the new buildings.
East Bank is London’s most exciting new development and the largest cultural and
educational district created in the capital for 150 years. Situated within Queen
Elizabeth Olympic Park – one of Europe’s most successful new parklands– it marks
a significant eastward shift in the capital's cultural landscape.
East Bank unites world-renowned institutions, Sadler’s Wells, BBC, V&A, UAL’s
London College of Fashion and UCL, around an invitational ‘common ground’ – a
flexible-use public realm where art , learning and performance is brought outdoors
for everyone’s benefit.
All of the institutions are committed to reaching diverse new audiences, building
community through culture, and providing job opportunities and economic benefits to the local area.
Within East Bank, the Stratford Waterfront site is complex and steep but generous terracing makes the most of an eight-metre level change to the river. These terraces are beautifully planted and create places to pause, play or perform. A south-facing waterfront promenade
features cafés and restaurants with views over the park.
The masterplan and landscape design were developed inclusively through iterative
engagement with local people , the cultural institutions , and accessibility groups
founded during the Paralympic Games, ensuring there are no barriers and that
everyone is welcome.
The public realm at Stratford Waterfront, designed by LDA Design and Allies and Morrison, delivers over 1.5 hectares of new landscape, including more than 2,000m2 of green space.
The existing bridges across the park presented an eight-metre level change at the boundary of the site. This prompted the creation of a new podium level, wrapping the cultural buildings and providing elevated views of the park. Terraces step down from podium to ground level, creating opportunities for seating and planting, forming performance spaces, and orientating south-facing views over the Waterworks River and towards the wider park. New cafés and restaurants spill out onto this waterfront.
Stratford Waterfront is an important new piece of city that can be used by everyone, regardless of their background. The terraces provide opportunity to pause, play, and perform, and they have been brought to life through a year-round programme of free arts and educational events.
The site is proving to be an equally successful backdrop to contemporary dance festivals, classical concerts, impromptu fashion photo-shoots,
weekday lunchbreaks, family days out, and long summer evenings with friends. It is a hard-working yet carefully considered landscape, which is able to improve access to culture, provide moments of quiet relaxation, and celebrate moments of collective joy.
The newly opened V&A East Museum, designed by O'Donnell + Tuomey, is expressly intended to attract visitors of 18 - 30 years old, engaging a new generation with the transformative influence of art and design. Its permanent gallery is titled “Why We Make”, questioning the role of design in society. The opening exhibition, “The Music is Black”, is part of a programme of events which extends to
the other cultural partner buildings and their output, demonstrating the collaboration at the heart of East Bank.
London College of Fashion, designed by Allies and Morrison, consolidated their six campuses across London into a single “forever-home” at the centre of East
Bank. The heroic scale of the building is experienced as a vertical campus, celebrating every aspect of fashion production. Over 5,000 students use the building. The public are welcomed in to ground floor galleries, while the students spill out to use Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as the backdrop to photo-shoots. London College of Fashion was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2025.
BBC Music Studios, designed by Allies and Morrison, will be the new home to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and to the BBC’s “Rock and Pop” recording studios. Music of all genres will be practised, performed, and broadcast from Stratford Waterfront. An extensive programme of learning and outreach with local schools and youth groups will provide new opportunities, investing in the next generation of musicians and performers.
The 500-seat auditorium of Sadler’s Wells East is the largest performance space within East Bank, presenting contemporary and traditional forms of dance to new audiences. The stage has the same dimensions as that of Sadler’s Wells in Angel, allowing shows to be transferred between venues. A public foyer wraps
the ground floor, drawing visitors in to an informal dance space, while upstairs the rehearsal studios look out into the park. Designed by O'Donnell + Tuomey.
