For more than a century the disparate disciplines of the London College of Fashion have been scattered across six different sites. Now these have been brought together for the first time in a new building that is also the first to be completed at Stratford Waterfront, the London Legacy Development Corporation’s £1.1bn bid to inject some cultural pizazz into the former Olympic Park and an area dominated by shopping, railways and a rash of residential towers. 

Located on a sliver of land between a road and railway lines running into Stratford station on one side, and the river Lea on the other, ambitions for the waterfront are high. When completed, the four buildings will house the V&A East, Sadlers Wells East and a new home for the BBC Symphony Orchestra.