Lee Valley Ice Centre by LDA Design

Lee Valley Ice Centre (LVIC) is a new £30m state-of-the-art, low-energy ice centre with two Olympic-sized ice pads. It is also the UK’s most sustainable ice centre. It occupies the site of a 1980s single-rink venue in east London that could no longer deal with demand. The old rink was surrounded by extensive, hard-standing car parking and amenity lawns.

LVIC is in an area of Waltham Forest that is within the 26-mile-long Lee Valley Regional Park and is near the Walthamstow Marshes, a Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI), a rare remaining example of London’s floodplain grasslands. A £1.5million landscape transformation has connected the new Centre with its wider setting and ecological heritage, restoring key habitats for native species.

As well as elite and recreational skating, LVIC now serves the needs of a broad community by offering modern sports facilities including clubs, classes, dance studios and a gym. It also doubles capacity for other ice activities including ice hockey. These new facilities are set within a restored, biodiverse, climate resilient, welcoming and attractive landscape.

Since opening, the Centre has had a big impact locally and nationally becoming a thriving community hub and one of the most popular ice-skating venues in the UK. Last month, LVIC welcomed its millionth visitor and thousands of young people have had the opportunity to skate for free.

A 10-year community programme run from the centre includes a weekly health programme and nature awareness sessions for up to 30 schools and community groups designed to foster environmental stewardship among future generations.

Sustainable water management is key to climate resilience. It mitigates climate change by protecting ecosystems and it reduces carbon emissions from water transportation and treatment. A key landscape innovation for LVIC is the recycling of ice melt water through constructed wetlands, creating wildlife-rich ponds and discharging clean water to the River Lea. This is the first of its kind not only in the UK, but across the world.

This innovation means that rather than go into the sewage system treated ice-melt water can join rainwater from the building’s roof to transform a near-stagnant Oxbow Lake on the River Lea into a free-flowing and oxygenated water body, and to create biodiverse ponds. The system has been approved by the UK government body, the Environment Agency. This pioneering approach will reduce the energy use and carbon emissions from the pumping and treatment associated with discharging of ice melt to the sewerage system.

In addition, within the landscape a sustainable drainage system (SuDS) includes the introduction of generous bioswales planted with native trees, shrubs and perennials that are climate resilient to survive winters with heavy rainfall and hot, dry summers.

The project’s environmental benefits are significant and it addresses biodiversity loss, a critical issue in urban environments. A large overflow car park has been replaced with native species of trees, shrubs and wildflower meadow to create and expand key habitats and enrich biodiversity. Little-used amenity lawns are now wildflower meadows and over 150 native trees have been planted, including locally sourced Black Poplars.

Multi-species design has created habitats for otters, swifts, grass snakes, rare bumblebees and many other species. There are swift boxes in the building, insect hotels in bicycle shelters and hedgehog shelters in the woodland. Rare and threatened bumblebees have already been sighted.

Gabion walls wrap around the building’s façade. Native climbers like roses, honeysuckle, hop and ivy climb the walls creating a microclimate for mosses and lichens, providing a variety of food sources and hiding spaces for invertebrates, birds, bats, amphibians and reptiles. Just four months after the opening, grass snakes were spotted retreating into the gabion baskets. Data from the project shows more than 30% biodiversity net gain, with the return of key species and improved water quality in nearby ecosystems.

LVIC is also the UK’s only all-electric ice centre. The building is highly energy efficient and airtight with enough solar panels to cover 2.5 tennis courts, more than any ice centre in the UK. It is also designed to attract visitors into benefitting from its setting, with easy access into Lee Valley Regional Park promoting contact with nature and improving health and wellbeing.

The project supports the circular economy, with as much waste as possible reused and recycled on site. There are upcycled picnic tables and benches and recycled decking near new ponds. Active travel is encouraged for visitors and bespoke bicycle shelters have green roofs.

Extensive community engagement ensured the design properly met local needs, and public workshops and stakeholder feedback shaped the final design. The project team worked closely with local community groups committed to seeing the adjacent marshland protected and enhanced. For example, ‘citizen science’ proved crucial to understanding the desire lines of local grass snake species, creating a green corridor that has been proven to support their movement between the east and west of the site.

• Architecture offices involved in the design:
FaulknerBrowns

• Other credits:
Client: Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
Project Manager: Wrenbridge Sport
Structural and Civil Engineering: Expedition Engineering
MEP Engineering: Max Fordham
Contractor: Buckingham Group

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