First decision provides Olympic hope

In 2006 the worry is that the story becomes one of cost and time overruns, political acrimony and project teams working under a barely tolerable glare of public scrutiny. All this was foreshadowed in the ridiculous spat over the cost of Zaha Hadid’s pool. Grit your teeth, there’s plenty more like that to come.

But this week there is hope. The games organisers are starting to make some good decisions. Our story that the original masterplanning team is the preferred choice of the Olympic Delivery Authority is a victory for natural justice. Edaw, Foreign Office Architects, Allies & Morrison and HOK Sport made the technical side of the bid irresistible and deserved to continue.

It is also a victory for common sense. The idea of pouring thousands of hours of some of the most talented designers’ time into producing a winning scheme and then deciding we might need to have a wider look at some other consultants was baffling in the first place. So, yes, time and money has been wasted in the process of meeting EU procurement rules and throwing the whole thing out to tender again, but the right decision looks set to be reached in the end.

Let’s hope the ODA keeps going like this — logical decisions which put faith in those who really understand the problems of shaping an Olympic project. London 2012 is no time for wild experimentation with the sports event itself. Edaw — with experience of Olympics dating back to Montreal in 1976 through Atlanta, Sydney and now Beijing — and ubiquitous stadium designer HOK are safe choices for getting the four weeks of the Games just right.

But Foreign Office and Allies & Morrison must provide the invention and skill that need to be applied to the other half of the problem, the legacy — that $64 million question that has stumped all but a few Olympic cities.

The park masterplanners must somehow build into their plan maximum flexibility to cover heavens knows what uses in the years after the games. The loose-fit building must now become the loose-fit masterplan. It is a daunting challenge which has so far been underestimated in thinking about regeneration, but one mirrored on other non-Olympic projects — King’s Cross, White City and the Elephant & Castle. Is the ODA really to lead the field?