Battersea Power Station is a much-loved landmark and an enduring cultural icon. Since decommissioning in 1983 the site has remained vacant with attempts to develop it having faltered in part because of the costs of restoring the listed building. In 2008 a new masterplan for the site was unveiled with Rafael Vinoly’s design of a residential-led scheme looking to capitalise on the London property market.
The public realm has been designed as a series of overlapping systems – horticulture, paved spaces, water management, biodiversity, microclimate, topography, human program - with the expression of these informed by a sense of industrial robustness that comes with the site history. The overall design has to achieve a unity while mediating between new buildings designed with very different characteristics and by a host of signature architects – to date Foster and Partners, Gehry Partners, dRMM and Ian Simpson Architects have been commissioned to design buildings with Wilkinson Eyre leading the refurbishment of the Power Station.
To showcase Phase I development a pavilion and pop-up park provided a marketing facility of the wider Power Station site. The pop-up park created a flexible and programmable space with a dynamic planting design, which changes the character and appearance of the park throughout the year.
Credits as supplied:
Project team: Lead Landscape Architect: LDA Design
Architect: Ian Simpson Architects
Building Services Engineer: Hoare Lea
Civil and Structural Engineer: Buro Happold
