It's more likely that an Englishman will win Wimbledon this year than that the Olympic Delivery Authority Planning Decisions team will tonight throw out the Olympic Delivery Authority's own revised plans for the London 2012 Games' most divisive development - the £355m media centre.
The designs are a reworking by Allies & Morrison following a storm of criticism from CABE, the GLA, ELBA and Hackney and principally seek to overcome concerns about poor design and a lack of "legacy" thinking.
You can judge for yourself here, as I have downloaded copies of the artists' impressions and put them on EGi and on the blog.
CABE has already welcomed the "viable" revisions to the complex and that ought to be enough for the ODA, which is obviously under pressure to get on and build the thing.
According to Savills' covering letter the revised proposals now include elevation enhancements to the area as well as design improvements aimed at providing greater architectural coherence throughout.
With regards to the Main Press Centre, Savills writes that the building has been broken into three separate parts to avoid "mundane industrial associations".
The plans also reduce the scale and apparent length of the MPC to provide "visual interest through layering, texture and variety".
With regards to the International Broadcast Centre the design of the elevations has been remodelled to allow the building to be more easily "transformed for legacy use" and its appearance adapted to complement the MPC building.
The Multi Storey Car Park has been redeveloped to substitute a "more permanent perforated curved metal cladding in place of the previously proposed fabric cladding".
All in all it sounds like an attempt to sensibly respond to CABE's suggestion that the plans ought to be made more flexible so that a business park can be incrementally built on the site should the hoped-for broadcasters and media tenants not arrive.
Very much expect a "yes" decision tonight subject to some suggested amendments.
More intriguing is whether Carillion remain on the project as the developer/contractor now it is all being funded from the public purse. I am told this is by no means a done deal.
And perhaps even more intriguing is what Baroness Ford and her new Olympic Legacy Vehicle thinks of it all. There are rumours that she is considering a speedy and altogether more temporary makeover for the media centre.
Would be interested to hear other views on the designs.
The new designs look pretty uninspiring although they are an improvement. They are probably not going to offend or alienate anybody though so maybe that's for the best if they are to attract tenants post-2012.
Hi Chris,
I think it initially does seem like a "something for everyone" design here rather than perhaps the spectacular "we must move there" statement that Hackney and ELBA would like. But as you say it may well be this proves the most sensible solution post 2012