Sliding - a new event for the 2012 Olympics?

The Olympic village could feature the huge slides currently on display in the Tate Modern. The German artist behind the giant chutes, Carsten Holler, has commissioned a feasibility study into installing similar slides at Stratford. It was carried out by urban and rural regeneration consultants General Public Agency.

One proposed slide links the top of the Morgan House office block, adjoining the Stratford Centre, with the shopping complex. Another would be 40 metres long, connecting Stratford regional station and the Olympic park's new international terminal.

Four slides would link the multi-storey car park, off Great Eastern Road, with the shopping centre and a further slide would land in Gerry Raffles Square from a nearby tower block.

Holler believes that sliding can help counter “depression, other mental health problems obesity, respiratory conditions and heart disease”.

He said: "I hope that once people see the possibilities at Tate Modern, they will take it seriously."

The GPA study found that the proposed slides would cost around £600,000.

It said: "Stratford has a rich hidden history but lacks a strong positive identity. New development has so far lacked a distinctive local character and has not responded to the culture and character of its communities. In this situation, slides could be a way to give the area a new focus and identity that could engage the local communities and provide a uniquely different realm."

Holler's slides are on display (and free to try out) in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall until April 2007.

For more information visit: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/carstenholler/