Westfield gets £200M sports facility

Ski lovers are able to slope off to east London to practise their skills at London’s first indoor ski resort, which is one of the largest in the world.

One of the world’s leading shopping centre companies, Westfield, has bought the 4.6-acre Chobham Farm South site next to its Stratford city shopping centre. The freehold was bought from London & Continental Railways for an unknown sum.

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This area of east London was redeveloped for the London 2012 Olympics, so it seems only fitting that Westfield planned there development of £200m indoor ski resort complete with real snow in this part of the capital city.

Westfield already had the development rights for about 40 acres of the Stratford city site before securing the development option for Chobham South.
The longest run is 300 metres, which is now twice the length of the longest one in the UK at present. The resort will include an ice rink, snow play areas, and toboggan runs. There is also  about 20,000 square metres of piste for skiing covered in “real” snow throughout the year, according to CoStar News.

Londons major dome

The  London ski resort will be twice the size of the existing snow centres in England, based at Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead. It will also be equal to the world’s biggest ski resort, Ski Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Westfield also has other ambitious plans including a major extension to its Stratford City shopping centre and more than 1,000 homes.

Creating a stir with fabric structures

Westfield Stratford City is already the largest retail and urban centre in Europe and attracted more than 43 million customers in 2014. The scheme has provided thousands of jobs in the retail and leisure industry in addition to building contractors and designers.

Part of the eye-catching design includes the use of bespoke Tensile Fabric Structures such as those being created by https://www.spatialstructures.com/building-systems-explained. designers created an outdoor covered performance space for the shopping centre that stands 7m high and has a 300m2 fabric canopy.  It really is the future of buildings whether permanent structures or temporary ones for festivals or events.

In addition to providing outdoor seating and a performance area, Westfield also wanted a creation that would attract shoppers and further enhance the restaurants and shops in and around Chestnut Plaza.

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