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New designs for Battersea Power Station unveiled
Peter Dominiczak14.04.09
NEW designs for Battersea Power Station have been unveiled after a plan for a 250-metre "eco-chimney" was scrapped in the face of hostility from local residents and Boris Johnson.
The latest proposal for the £4 billion project shows a glass roof curving over Giles Gilbert Scott's Grade II listed building, with a series of medium-rise blocks on either side.
Crucially for fans of the structure, its famous chimneys are to be left intact. In the previous, rejected design, a huge eco-chimney and an accompanying dome were meant to contain a wind turbine for energy and provide heating for the office blocks, making it carbon-neutral.
The developers have now redesigned the scheme with Uruguayan architect Rafael Vinoly as part of a public consultation by Wandsworth Council on the regeneration of the Nine Elms area.
Rob Tincknell, managing director of developer Treasury Holdings, told the magazine Building Design: "The site will be transformed into the first large-scale, urban, carbon-neutral development in the UK. It will provide around 13,000 jobs and 3,500 homes and a new six-acre riverside park with direct access to Battersea Park."
The scheme has also received a cautious welcome from Save Britain's Heritage. Secretary William Palin said: "The positive thing is the space in front of the power station - that's important. But the curved roof looks incongruous - the wonderful thing about the power station is the angularity of it. I don't think it complements the building."
The development also includes extending the Northern Line to the site by 2015 - the first privately funded extension of the Tube.
Reader views (14)
If this plan fails then we MUST DEMOLISH this building and allow something new to arise on this site.
We cannot simply go on and on with plans while the structure continues to deterioate.
As for plans for a tube extention this has to be tied in with splitting the Northern Line into two seperate lines with major re-building of Camden Town Station to seperate the lines and allow cros platorm interchange between city and west end lines. The City line would continue to serve Mordon while the West End line would serve Battersea.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
I think that Pete is bang on the money. I have lived in South West London for 15 years and have seen many development plans for the power station come and go, amongst many others have been plans for conference centres, concert halls, theme parks (complete with a roller coaster going around the chimneys), a cinema/ shopping complex, needless to say that the press gets very excited about them but they come to nothing, I read somewhere once that the owners have a legal covenant to submit a plan to develop the site once every two years to Wandsworth Council, which they dutifully do, but with no intention of seeing them through. I have no idea if this is true, but if none of the projects were acted upon during the property boom then there is no hope during a slump.
- Nj, London
The curved roof looks fine to me.
Unfortunately I don't see it happening in the current financial climate, and this poor old power station will probably have fallen down or become terminally unsafe by the time that there is money and demand for its redevelopment. A shame, because it is a building worth saving. At least we've still got Bankside power station (aka Tate Modern).
- Nigel, London
Time to demolish this hidious Brave New World example of 1930s industry, not one plan has succeeded so far, I've lost count of all the pipe dreams.
It's a blight on the landscape, spoiling the vista which includes the beautiful trees of Battersea Park, I'm sure if I lived on the opposite bank of The Thames I would ask eco - warrior demolition/activists to finally do something useful for society.
- Frank H., London UK.
Let's preserve it as best possible people! It is a great London icon.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
Why not just pop the American Embassy in there?
- Julia, London
Why would anyone want to live next door to a smelly power station?
- Kimberley, London
Hope you are not right Pete, but you probably are, it's getting more and more obvious that they want the whole structure to become so delapitated that it will have to be demolished therefore giving the developers a blank canvas and not have to bother with the hassle of incorperating the original buildings. Another 5 years of neglect should do it!
- -Neal, Battersea, london
This site is a national embarrassment and has now lain vacant and unused since the 1980's! The power station buildings should never have been listed . The problem has been cuased by a ludicrous planning system that , in attempting to 'protect' buildings ,effectively blights them, and in this case a whole patch of London for decades. God help the developers! They will need endless patience to deal with the likes of English Heritage .
- E Morris, London Uk
Much better, please fast track this and get on with it. It's sad to see such prime land and such an iconic building rotting on the banks of the Thames. I wish politicians would stop bickering about irrelevant things and start investing in the future of Lonodn & the UK. Fingers crossed for this plan.
- Dave, Madrid
Know it down and clear the site, then you can actually build something interesting
- Chris, London
Another pipedream that will never happen, also I have lost count how many other plans there were in the past for Battersea.
- Joe, Swanley Kent
This is a much better design, and the iconic towers remain.
- Goggs, London
Yawn, yawn, yawn yet another development plan for the Battersea power station site. No doubt it will go the same way as all the other so called development plans submitted over the past 20 years. Nowhere!!.
- Pete, South London
