Park Life

Taking the 2012 Olympics beyond the traditional realm of sport, as part of a riverside park, a half-mile long botanical garden will transform the area into a veritable feast for the senses. The park, which will remain for local residents to enjoy after the Olympiad, will be about the size of St James's Park, near Buckingham Palace.

Inspired by Britain's five centuries of collecting plants from around the world, the riverside rival to Kew Gardens will be divided into four geographic zones, representing Europe and the Mediterranean, the Americas, Asia and the southern hemisphere. Together, they will contain thousands of species, many of them brought back by British explorers and horticulturalists.

The four zones of the 2012 garden will be punctuated by bridges across Waterworks River, a branch of the River Lee, made navigable to large barges. It will take visitors through four colourful periods of garden history, inspired by the great British plant collectors. People will be able to walk from western Europe and the Mediterranean in the 14th-17th centuries, via America in the 17th and 18th centuries, through plants from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand in the 18th-19th centuries, and finally Asia and the Far East in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In addition to the garden, the park will include flowering meadows, thousands of native woodland trees and several hills, on which spectators will be able to watch events on giant screens. The garden will run along a widened branch of the river on either side of the park's main entrance, between the main stadium and the striking aquatic centre designed by the architect Zaha Hadid.