Battersea Power Station

This is the new design proposal for Battersea Power Station in London. The building itself is a listed building but has ran into a state of disrepair having not been in use for many decades. Strangely the new proposal includes relaunching the building as a steam power station.

'The four-chimney silhouette of the power station, which became an icon when it featured on Pink Floyd's 1977 Animals album, will be rivalled by a new, much taller chimney rising 300m as part of a vast plastic "eco-dome" covering a 19 acre office campus on neighbouring land.

A cross between a Centerparcs holiday resort and the Eden Project in Cornwall, the eco-dome aims to reduce energy consumption in the office buildings it contains by 67% compared to conventional offices. The chimney will draw cool air through the offices so there will be no energy hungry air-conditioning units.

On neighbouring sites there will be 3,200 new homes. The power station's twin turbine halls will become shopping arcades and the roofless boiler room will be planted as a park. The new power plant will be buried beneath a six-acre park and connected to two of the chimneys.

"This will be a power station for the 21st century sitting alongside Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's building and supporting a truly sustainable, zero-carbon development," said Rob Ticknell, who is managing the development for Treasury Holdings.

The developers claimed that once complete in 2020 around 7000 people will live on the site, some in apartments within the power station, others in neighbouring blocks of flats and a few in apartments wrapped around the eco-dome's chimney.

The designs have been masterminded by Uruguay-born architect Rafael Vinoly and are the third major attempt bring the Grade II*-listed power station back into use since the turbines stopped turning in 1983. A plan to turn it into an amusement park was launched by Margaret Thatcher but collapsed when the developer, Sir John Broome, ran out of funds. Between 1993 and 2006 the site was controlled by Parkview, a company owned by Hong Kong property tycoon Victor Hwang who envisaged shops, 40 restaurants and bars, thousands of apartments and a multiplex cinema. He sold the site largely untouched but at a profit.

Amid the failed plans, the building has fallen further into disrepair and is now listed as in "very bad" condition on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk register. The chimneys are in such bad condition that they must be demolished and rebuilt, the scheme's architects admit.

"Battersea Power Station needs to be saved," said Rafael Vinoly. "Buildings like this have a virtue of becoming part of the collective consciousness and this is very beloved in Britain. Our approach has to be to produce a development plan that can fund that."'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jun/20/art.architecture

The plans look fantastic but perhaps in the current economic state this may not take shape for a long time. It would be a brilliant way of restoring such an iconic building and it would regenerate the area phenomenally. It remains to be seen whether these ambitious plans do go ahead.

Salts Mill, Saltaire

http://www.saltsmill.org.uk/

While in Saltaire last weekend I made sure to take a look inside Salts Mill. The Mill contains shops, galleries and a cafe for you to take time out and appreciate the art and design inside. The main attraction of the Mill is the work of David Hockney on display but there are other artists work on display and it's an enjoyable day out. There is also a fantastic shop where you can pick up any different art and design books.

Having just searched for the website I thought the design was pretty good, I liked the panoramic images of the mill but I found it hard to navigate and find out about what the mill has to offer. If I hadn't have been then I would have found it rather difficult to understand.

Liverpool One

As part of the Capital of Culture success Liverpool saw the addition of a new multi-million pound shopping centre called Liverpool One. Having been a couple of times the design is something that has confused me. I find some parts of it stunning and very modern architecturally but when inside the complex there is alot of concrete on shown and it does feel very dark. Although open for business the project itself is not finished and my hope is that they will return to some areas and add a bit of colour to what is drab grey concrete...although alternatively they could let the youth of Liverpool just paint it themselves in the dark of night.

http://www.liverpool-one.com/website/

Stadiums

Now, being a Liverpool fan at the moment there is a lot of talk about the new stadium plans. The new American owners have scrapped the old plans for the New Anfield and have re-designed the stadium to emphasize the Kop as well as allowing room for expansion at a later date. The plans are to be released soon but it has made me look at other stadia being developed and built around the world. My question is about the seemingly generic appearance of many stadia around the world. They are all becoming the same 'bowl' shape and are moving away from the old 'atmospheric' feel, something which i feel is integral to the whole football experience.


Original Plans for the new Anfield, above.


and an alternative design emphasizing the Kop and keeping an 'old fashioned' look.

The search for these new stadia led me to many different examples:

Nottingham Forest's proposed new stadium, bearing in mind they are in league one do they expect to fill it?


Similar story in Brighton...

...and Doncaster...

...and Luton...

...and Milton Keynes...

...and Southend, with a wierd little growth off the side of it. Bizare!


Of course the Americans have always been into their bowled stadia and this is just the latest edition, the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium - http://stadium.dallascowboys.com/



For good measure though...

...Oldham Athletic, that's more like it!

Do people agree that the designs are generic? or are they a mark of the modern era of architectural designing?

The Bullring

Having travelled through Birmingham on the train this weekend I was struck by The Bull Ring shopping centre from a great distance away. From a distance the building and its construction reminded me of different places namely the Allianz Arena in Munich and a theatre in Prague that I was lucky enough to visit.

The whole experience of seeing the Bull Ring posed to me the question of modern developments and the debate about whether they are architectural masterpieces or monstrosities on the horizon?

I personally think the Bull Ring's appearance although strange or unusual at first is a fantastic piece of architecture and is a tribute to 21st century engineering much like the Allianz Arena.

The Allianz Arena in Munich for example has been constructed with foil panels that are kept inflated with dry air. The arena has the fantastic attribute of being able to change the colour of the panels depending on which team is playing at the stadium.

Allianz Arena, Munich.

Theatre in Prague