Look at this!
This is an artist’s impression of a plan to convert Battersea Power Station into a source of renewable energy – read the full story at inhabitat.com. It’s all very commendable, and the new structure itself is elegant and interesting, but the old power station’s dominance over the skyline of that corner of London, which is the best thing about it, will be markedly diminished if they do go ahead and build it. I’m not convinced.
I spent this morning at TfL’s newest home, the Palestra building on Blackfriars Road. When construction began several years ago I used to pass the site every day on my way to work and wonder whether it was ever going to be anything other than an enormous hole, until one day it seemed to emerge from the ground fully formed, dwarfing everything around it.
Some local residents opposed its construction, and it’s not hard to see why: there’s nothing context-friendly about the design, and apart from anything else it blocks the river views of the buildings immediately opposite. But once you’re inside there’s a lot that’s good about it: it’s open-plan without being blandly corporate, the communal areas look like some actual thought went into how and when they would be used, and I only heard good things about the canteen. Plus, they gave me free tea and cake.
More importantly, though, everything that can be done to reduce a building’s emissions is done here. I’m told it’s 100% carbon neutral, although I can’t find any official confirmation of that. But certainly a significant amount of the energy it uses comes from solar panels and wind turbines on the roof (you can see them from the nearby railway line, if you happen to be travelling into Waterloo East). This is all good.
Even better is the view from the eleventh floor, but I’m afraid I didn’t have the guts to ask if anyone minded if I took a photo, so you’ll just have to trust me on that.
This is tower two of the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong. Doesn’t it look just like a razor? I took the photo because the helicopter scudding past it makes it look like an advert for something hi-tech, though I’m not sure what.
It’s 415 metres tall, which makes it the tallest building in HK, but I can’t tell you where it ranks among the world’s tallest buildings, because it keeps changing and it depends on whether you count things like a spike on top as part of a building. Anyway, it’s tall – but you can’t go up it, which I think is a great loss. In Tokyo and New York the top floors of skyscrapers are opened up as public spaces, with viewing galleries, bars and exhibitions, which is just about the most civilised thing I can think of and I wish more places did it. But it doesn’t happen in London, and it seems it doesn’t happen in Hong Kong either.
Although I think the glory of Hong Kong is in looking up at it from ground- (or sea-) level, so perhaps it’s not such a loss.
I’ve just come across this design for an eco-efficient but super sexy new skyscraper on the Dubai waterfront. If it’s genuinely possible to build green skyscrapers, and to make them look this good (though it may lose something in the translation from paper to stone) then all kinds of possibilities open up, especially in housing, where before long we are going to be forced to have some new ideas.
Edit: having spent five minutes investigating, I see there are lots of designs for green skyscrapers out there. If I get a chance I’ll link to some of them later on.
Glad All Over 