Acrylicize Wins Bronze 2012

It may not have been love at first site. For some, it took a little while before they understood what it was about and why we should feel proud. Some were preoccupied with the looming irritation that their all-important routine to work was at threat of being disturbed.

For those that aren’t remotely sporty it was a mere shrug of the shoulders that something was happening with sportsmen and women that they’d never heard of and took no interest in, most probably until the Olympic Opening Ceremony….

The roar of jet engines from the Red Arrows soaring over our heads on that sunny Friday evening rumbled the butterflies in your stomach. They grew more as 26million of us watched our TV screens as a stadium filled with 50,000 people celebrating the start of something very very exciting.

Thomas Heatherwick’s awe-inspiring cauldron lit more than its copper petals, it ignited a fireball of excitement, ricocheting through the British land as we were stunned into silence at what our Great Britain was capable of…

Welcome World, to the London 2012 Olympics.

June 2012.

The anticipation was mounting, East London was alive with a buzz in the air and all everyone was talking about was the Olympics, the village, and the stadiums. And what incredible venues they were! As a collective so intrinsically linked with architecture, design and space – we were digging the creative buzz in the air.

Imagine our delight when Waltham Forest Council commissioned us to make a series of bronze sculptures representing the key venues in the Olympic Park! 

Working with Balfour Beatty Regional Civil Engineering and East Architecture as the lead architects, we installed on the pathway from Leyton station to the Olympic Park as part of the Leyton Mills Access Improvements project..

The idea was that the architects had left these models on the rail for all to appreciate, creating a sense of anticipation for the real thing.

Fast forward through weeks of project development, a series of 3D printing machine prototypes, a specialist bronze fabricator and hey presto…

On your marks, get set, ready… Acrylicize hits the Olympics! 

A proud moment for all of us.

Here are our little bronze beauties…

Here they are being positioned by the team…

Securing safely onto the handrail…

And the finished result…. 

Special thanks to Waltham Forest Council, Balfour Beatty and East Architecture for inviting us to be a part of their project.