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Horse Guards Parade
Architects: Populous, the principal architect of London’s Olympics.
Nickname: “The Queen’s Beach”.
The bare facts: The 15,000-seat temporary arena has been set up in the iconic central London parade ground. Situated between St James’s Park and Whitehall, the top tiers of the venue will offer spectacular views of Big Ben and the London Eye.
The inside track: The space has been used for parades since the 17th century and is where the British Army performs the Trooping the Colour ceremony every year in honour of the Queen’s birthday. To fill the temporary volleyball arena 5,000 tonnes of sand — or 1,679 billion grains — have been shipped in from Surrey, creating the capital’s very own “beach”. Roughly the same size as Wimbledon’s Centre Court, an arena this size would normally take 14 months to build. Instead the venue was constructed in just 36 days, to avoid disrupting the Trooping the Colour and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The events: Beach volleyball: until August 9.
The future: The arena will be dismantled and the sand recycled to create new beach volleyball areas across the city. The sand from last year’s test event has already created seven new beach volleyball courts in Crystal Palace, Leyton and Westminster.
