Olympia, November 2021.  Click for super-size panorama

Anyone living near Olympia will be all too aware of the scale of the building works going on. When we first looked at the plans in late 2017,  we couldn’t envisage the true scale of the project.  At that time, the visualisations showed mezzanine decks added to the halls to increase floor area, and the rest were just outlines.  We’re now told that the mezzanines are not going to be built as exhibitors have shown a preference for more open floor area.  There are, after all, existing galleries around the halls.

Recently, the developers Yoo Capital/Future Olympia have invited the public to visit and overlook the site via the roof, as we advertised in our diary, the featured tour being led by construction director Tony Palgrave.  From Hammersmith Road one can see the huge steel structure supporting the Art Deco frontage, but what’s not so obvious is the size of the hole behind it.  The original building as you can see is now gone, but it had limited value having been chopped about for decades as previous owners tried to make it relevant, even becoming the “UKAY Olympia” furniture shop in the 1980’s.  The concrete is being ground up and recycled for the new buildings, a modern way to reduce waste, but not perhaps as green as some might have it, due to limited re-use of the embodied carbon.

Olympia roof – music venue in distance

The music venue at the rear of the site (shown adjacent in the distance with white crane alongside) is now built to it’s final height and the foundations for the theatre in front if it are now being built (far right of the main panorama); this will be followed by the foundations for the offices that will appear behind and above the Deco frontage over the next year or two. The proposed phased opening will be in 2024-5.

Olympia model 2021

The model on display in the Pillar Hall where the tour started, which we first saw at our AGM in 2019, shows the scale of the development, with the theatre frontage onto Hammersmith Road to the left of the office block behind the Deco frontage. Committee members have been active in helping to improve the theatre frontage and public realm by meeting periodically with the developers over the last 2 or 3 years.

The Council is struggling to finance the upkeep of its school estate, a portfolio which includes over forty primary schools.  Limited funds have been available since the government Building Schools for the Future programme was terminated in 2010, and in March last year the Council introduced a “Community Schools Programme”, proposing to finance the improvement works by the building of affordable housing on school grounds. The programme starts with Flora Gardens and Avonmore Primary Schools.

Flora Gardens School Site

We are concerned at the direction of this policy: the unquestionable priority of good public education facilities does not justify the loss of public open space.

Public open space is sacred, it is a rare and precious commodity, and the acceptance of a practice which permanently removes the open space to alleviate a temporary financial shortfall is a mistake: it erodes the quality of our urban surroundings to the detriment of the public realm, and removes potential sites for future social facilities such as youth clubs and provision for the elderly, but also removes spare capacity essential to accommodate the likely increase in space requirements arising from the current review of school standards. 

Olympia theatre – as submitted for planning

In April the Society joined an on-line consultation meeting when the Olympia development team presented their draft proposals due to be submitted shortly to amend the original approved scheme.  We have been following their progress on the design of the theatre on the southwest corner of Olympia, and the scheme has greatly improved, now providing a lively and interesting façade to introduce Olympia on the Hammersmith Road frontage. Details of the submission should be available on the LBHF planning website shortly.

We are expecting further news about the Triangle development on Beadon Road, after the developer held an uninformative public exhibition in March to show a proposal for a combination of hotel and office uses in the new building.  

The huge Earls Court site is now in the hands of developers Delancey, who have invited the committee to an introductory presentation to take place in the near future.  This of course is likely to be on-line, given the circumstances, or much delayed.

2019: First Tom Ryland Award for Conservation – St. Augustine’s

Hammersmith Grove Parklets – East

Plants not pollution – Hammersmith Flyover

Planters under flyover

Paintbox Studios and Coffeeology

St. Augustine’s interior

Hammersmith Grove Parklets – West

We were pleased to announce our 2019 Awards at the AGM at Olympia on Wednesday 12th June, introduced by committee member Derrick Wright and presented by our President, Prof. Hans Haenlein. The large number of members present were provided excellent hospitality by Olympia in their Apex Room. Full details and a narrative are posted on our 2019 Awards page; the AGM photos and administrative documents are posted on our 2019 AGM page.

Summary

In our 30th year of Awards, we renamed our Conservation Award the Tom Ryland Award for Conservation in honour of our past Chairman. We were delighted to present it for the first time to St. Augustine’s Church in Fulham Palace Road.

There were four Nancye Goulden Awards this year, in two distinct pairs, all are projects which have made positive contributions to the Hammersmith streetscape.

The first two are King Street shop fronts: Paintbox Studios and Coffeeology. The other two awards recognise another type of improvement to the streetscape in the form of the Hammersmith Grove Parklets and The Planting under the Flyover.  The wooden spoon went to phase 1 of Sovereign Court.

We were also given a detailed presentation by SSPARC architects covering the history of Olympia and the extensive redevelopment plans, followed by an update from RSHP architects covering the Town Hall redevelopment plans. In a Q&A session, Councillor Wesley Harcourt kindly gave us an impromptu update on the Hammersmith Bridge situation.

Click on the newsletter image to open the pdf 

The Special 20-page Anniversary Newsletter has been published, celebrating 30 years of Hammersmith Society Awards. Printed copies are being distributed to subscribing members.

Olympia – View of theatre

Olympia Way

Olympia 1930 frontage & hotel

Olympia – View up North End road

Olympia Way – New entrance

Olympia – View from rail bridge

Olympia – Hotel

(Click on images for full-sized versions, then scroll through the set)

The big and complex application for redevelopment of the 14 acre site, which includes a cluster of Listed Buildings, was approved by the Council’s Planning Committee on 30 January, having been been given a very speedy journey through the planning process.

In our view it was not fully ready to be approved, and we had hoped to gain some modifications on height and architectural detail. There are also serious concerns about how the local area will cope with the numbers of additional workers and visitors to the exhibition halls and performance spaces, while TfL has stated that there is no prospect of extending regular District Line service to Kensington Olympia station in the immediate future, and adjacent bus routes have been recently curtailed.

In our comments we stated that the new development would breathe new life into a very special part of Hammersmith. But the proposed theatre block on Hammersmith Road, the height of the central office building rising above the original Olympia buildings, and the Thomas Heatherwick – designed hotel extension on the south-east corner, which will date very quickly, should have been given more time and thought to get right.