Vesta House, Olympic Village

DSDHA were selected by the Olympic Delivery Authority and Lendlease to design a new residential tower on a landmark triangular ‘gateway’ site to the Olympic Village in Stratford.

Vesta House is the tallest building in the village, providing 120 apartments which were temporarily subdivided to house the athletes during the 2012 Olympic Games, and subsequently reconfigured as 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.

The project comprises both private housing and affordable social housing and mixes the tenure of the occupants in a built form that is highly unusual in the UK, where, traditionally, different forms of tenure are kept separate for ease of management. It is an exemplar of investment in the emerging private residential rented sector.

The apartments are organised around a unique atrium, which provides a protected shared space to the building, delivering a sense of community and luxury at a more restricted budget than that of the surrounding blocks in the Olympic Village. Externally, the balconies gradually shift across the building’s facades, responding to daylighting analysis to maximise the environmental orientation of each apartment, and to create a sense of landscape responding to the site’s geology.