10 years ago the redevelopment of the iconic coal fired power station in London started and in 2022, Battersea Power Station reopened its doors. The old generating rooms have been retained and are now part of this iconic shopping and living space, showing that you don’t need to knock everything down to make a statement piece that the world will love.
New builds are taking over, with grassy fields and old buildings being demolished so major homebuilders can take advantage of creating the perfect first-time buy for most of those struggling to find a home. These are, by design, easy for people to get and cheap for builders to build, but I dread to think about the carbon footprint and green spaces being removed to enable this.
As we look at a new world of sustainable development and reusing what we have, looking at the design and creation of new spaces to work, live, and play is important.
About Battersea
Built at the end of the second world war, Battersea Power Station is an iconic former coal-powered plant.
The unseen costs of building from new
It is understated the amount of work that needs to be put into building one of the new build estates, or even a brand new office block in the middle of a city. But I think it’s worth stating this before praising what the team behind Battersea has done. This Guardian article highlights the carbon intensity of building from new when M&S was challenged on the demolition of one of their old stores and is one of the reasons we should be looking at reusing and not knocking down.
Carbon + Waste
In a sustainable society, it is important to understand the impact we have on the world with the things we do, building from scratch is an interesting thing to look at for sustainable development. The houses are, I am sure, built to modern specifications for heating and insulation to make them as efficient as possible and reduce their ongoing levels of carbon emission. However, these buildings don’t take into account the amount of carbon created when building, this includes transport and refinement of raw materials, the mining or deforestation required to create new bricks or timber, and the amount of transport needed to get items from site to site.
Coupled with the amount of waste we are sending to landfill by removing the old and planting in the new, it’s no wonder that the UK is making people think about renovating over building new. Looking at all of this, it turns out that your dream home might not be as environmentally friendly as you think.
Praise, therefore, must be given to the developers behind the Battersea project for not going with the easy option and coming up with a new and interesting way to utilise an old building. Yes, it has taken a long time for us to build, but there are some core features that the teams have done a great job of looking at, to ensure not just the sustainable development of the building but also the ongoing carbon footprint of creating such a unique piece from a massive part of London’s heritage.
What makes the Battersea look so great
I live way up North of London (Scotland is quite an expensive train journey), it’s not an easy thing for me to get to and although I’d love to go and have a look at such an amazing piece of design, I am unlikely to get time to in the coming months. But perusing through a selection of press pictures and articles from the likes of the BBC and the Guardian, there are some really interesting things that jump out at me.
Not binning the old
One thing I love about sustainable design and development is the circular economy, the idea that you can reuse, refurbish, and remanufacture core items for the same purpose or a new one is amazing. This is exactly what the team at Battersea has focused on because the building has always had some amazing prominence in the creation of electricity for London they have made some of the core-generating relics into statement design pieces.
There’s life in the power station yet
Before writing this post I had a very long look through the website of the power station and it was heartening to see that the enormous power consumption has been thought of. The modern grid is full of brand new ways of generating heat and electricity, Battersea builders have, of course, thought about this too, adding in new CHP boilers to fully power themselves with clean and green energy.
Rewilding
When developing something, one thing that often gets lost is the importance of reintroducing bugs and bees. Lots of new roads are being created, particularly through new build estates, and the displacement of wildlife that would have once used the greenery needs to be addressed. As part of the development, Battersea are creating brown roofs to encourage the return of birds and bees. Something many developers need to be thinking about in the future of creating.
A new standard for creative people
Often overlooked, there is a staggering amount of decaying and dated buildings across the United Kingdom that could do with another lease of life and these should be the first areas creatives and developers look at when thinking about creating the next office space.
I believe that Battersea was saved because of its cultural importance to the city of London and that becomes more of a revenue driver for the owners, but when you look at the amount that can be done in modern-day architecture, I am sure we also have the ability to give brutalist buildings of the 60s a new lease of life or even look at repurposing the schools of the 80s.
Sustainability isn’t all about recycling your crisp packets but thinking about how other wasteful practices can be changed and designers should look at the carbon impact of their projects alongside the creative piece.