{"id":2971,"date":"2022-10-07T06:14:55","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T06:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/?post_type=news&p=2971"},"modified":"2025-07-24T14:33:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T06:33:17","slug":"battersea-power-station-redesign-heralds-new-era-for-london-landmark","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/news\/battersea-power-station-redesign-heralds-new-era-for-london-landmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Battersea Power Station redesign heralds new era for London landmark"},"content":{"rendered":"

The relaunch of the Battersea Power Station has been long awaited \u2013 but some 30 years and a couple of attempts on, and now the much loved\u00a0London architecture\u00a0landmark is ready to open to the public again. Architecture studio WilkinsonEyre is behind its industrial architecture\u2019s refresh and reimagining into a mixed-use hub with extensive public spaces for all to enjoy. The building is set to throw open its doors to visitors\u00a0for the first time in decades on 14\u00a0October 2022.<\/p>\n

The project, a power station originally designed by\u00a0Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and built between 1935 and 1955,\u00a0sits at the heart of one of London\u2019s largest redevelopment areas, featuring\u00a0designs by global names in architecture, such as\u00a0Frank Gehry\u2019s\u00a0Prospect Place. But as the area surrounding the industrial building was being built, the station itself was also getting a significant makeover. While aiming to keep the Grade II*-listed building\u2019s historical elements and overall character, WilkinsonEyre transformed this\u00a0piece of London infrastructure into a complex of commercial, retail, public and residential space.\u00a0Battersea Power Station\u2019s first homes\u00a0were released in May 2021, but the wider public has not yet\u00a0had the chance to peek inside its repurposed, vast halls.\u00a0\"restored
\nPhotography: Brendan Bell<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Battersea Power Station holds a very special place in many people\u2019s hearts, particularly members of the local community, and after numerous failed attempts to redevelop the site before our shareholders took over the project in 2012, trust and the belief that the building would be restored to its former glory was low. Rebuilding this trust has been one of the biggest challenges in the project outside of the construction elements, and as custodians of one of the UK\u2019s most loved landmarks, we have taken this responsibility seriously and ensured we deliver to the very highest level quality,\u2019 says\u00a0Simon Murphy, CEO at Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC). He adds that the company actively tried to engage the local community in this large-scale and significant scheme in their neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

Battersea Power Station forms\u00a0part of the overall district\u2019s Phase 2 construction plans (there are seven more phases, including, for example, SimpsonHaugh and Partners and De Rijke Marsh Morgan\u00a0in Circus West Village\u2019s Phase 1, and\u00a0Foster + Partners<\/a>\u00a0and Gehry Partners in Electric Boulevard, which is made up of Battersea Roof Gardens and Prospect Place\u00a0as Phase 3). WilknisonEyre took the lead with the power station in ensuring that the existing building\u2019s heritage remains intact and is celebrated, while making this a modern, 21st-century piece of architecture, which fully serves its new purpose.<\/p>\n

\"Battersea
\nPhotography:\u00a0Backdrop Productions<\/em><\/p>\n

The architects are deft hands at the restoration and redesign of historical structures, which fed into their approach here.\u00a0\u2018A clear analogy is the New Bodleian Library at Oxford, another 1930s building by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, which we restored and reordered in 2006 as the Weston Library,\u2019 says\u00a0Jim Eyre, founding director at WilkinsonEyre. \u2018This was the job that put us in prime position to take on Battersea Power Station. Situated on a prominent site in the centre of Oxford, the building, like the power station, fuses stripped classical and modernist elements in a loosely art deco manner. Also, in the spirit of Battersea Power Station, [the library] presented rather fortress-like elevations to the outside world and was essentially a secret space dominated by its principle function of book storage. In a similar way, a private building has become a public one.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sustainability played a key role in the reimagining of the power station, as Murphy flags, while explaining that this truly mixed-used scheme will form a new\u00a015-minute neighbourhood<\/a>\u00a0for London.\u00a0\u2018We have tried to reuse as much of the existing fabric within the power station as possible. An example of this is the steel trusses in Turbine Hall A, which were strengthened rather than replaced. We have also sourced many of the new materials here in the UK to help reduce the carbon footprint, such as the 1.75 million bricks that were needed to rebuild the building, which came from the original brickmakers in Gloucestershire and Shropshire.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Battersea
\nPhotography:\u00a0Backdrop Productions<\/em><\/p>\n

Battersea Power Station is a building of significant scale, comprising two grand halls (the former turbine halls, each with its own architectural character);\u00a0several old and new entrances;\u00a0new offices and homes within the existing fabric, and a range of penthouses placed in new structures above the original roof line; as well as, of course, its iconic chimneys (which, for safety reasons, had to be dismantled and painstakingly rebuilt to the original specifications). The north-west chimney will now offer a unique lift experience, leading up to\u00a0360-degree panoramic views of London\u2019s skyline. The complex demands of handling listed, historical fabric, slotting in a new design, the combination of public and private aspects, and making sure everything merges harmoniously, while the building performs at the highest level when finished, meant that the project was full of challenges for the architecture and engineering team.<\/p>\n

\"inside
\nPhotography:\u00a0Backdrop Productions<\/em><\/p>\n

Sebastien Ricard, director at WilkinsonEyre, recalls a point where the building made them rethink their approach, adjust to an unexpected turn of events, and call upon previously never-used technology to tackle a problem:\u00a0\u2018Our philosophy from the outset was to retain as much as possible of the existing fabric where we could. Our initial response to the Boiler House \u2013 where new windows were needed for the offices behind \u2013 was to cut them into the existing east main wall (the west wall had been demolished and needed rebuilding). After reviewing the state of the wall, it was registered as a dangerous structure and we concluded we had to rebuild this wall rather than restore it. For the building to retain authenticity as a heritage asset, we used a very innovative prefabricated concrete panel system in which a combination of existing and matching new replacement bricks were set into the panels in the traditional pattern.\u2019<\/p>\n

This marriage of time-honed and innovative\u00a0techniques, old and new elements and material, past and present, quite neatly represents the celebrated building\u2019s new chapter. Now, Battersea Power Station, with its mixture of private and affordable homes, office space and modern retail, indoor and outdoor plazas, is ready to properly welcome the 25,000 people\u00a0who are estimated to\u00a0be living and working on site \u2013 making it one of London\u2019s largest new hubs of activity, and breathing new life to the much loved cultural icon. \u00a7<\/p>\n

\"control
\nPhotography: James Parsons<\/em>
\n\"turbine
\nPhotography:\u00a0Backdrop Productions<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The relaunch of the Battersea Power Station has been long awaited \u2013 but some 30 years and a couple of attempts on, and now the much loved\u00a0London architecture\u00a0landmark is ready to open to the public again. Architecture studio WilkinsonEyre is behind its industrial architecture\u2019s refresh and reimagining into a mixed-use hub with extensive public spaces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22476,"template":"","news_category":[16],"township-news":[],"venues-news":[],"class_list":["post-2971","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news_category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"township-news","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/township-news?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"venues-news","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spsetia.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/venues-news?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}