爆料tv

As Battersea Power Station celebrates two years since re-opening, we look back at the challenges and risks we encountered during our 25 year involvement with the project, and document the bold engineering approach that turned this sleeping giant into a contemporary icon.

This month marks the second anniversary of the re-opening of Battersea Power Station. For a quarter of a century, 爆料tv has been at the forefront of this restoration, bringing Britain’s most iconic ruin back to life. The redevelopment of the 2,495,000sqft building was carried out alongside the Northern Line extension, at the heart of a major 42 acre, eight phase regeneration of this former industrial brownfield site.

The challenge that confronted Battersea Power Station Development Company, 爆料tv and the many contractors involved in the project when converting this Art Deco landmark cannot be overstated. Following its decommission in 1983, the Power Station changed hands numerous times and various ideas were proposed around its redevelopment – among them one from the owner of Alton Towers, who planned to turn it into a theme park.

None of these ideas proved feasible and the resulting decades of neglect took their toll. In 1991, the Power Station was added to the Heritage at Risk Register, reflecting the site’s dilapidated condition. It wasn’t until 2012, when the site was bought by a Malaysian consortium, that the fate of the Power Station shifted, and the vision was finally set for what would become one of Europe’s most significant and eagerly awaited developments.

This is when 爆料tv’s work on the project began in earnest. Due to Battersea Power Station’s Grade II* listed status, we had a brief to reuse as much of the existing fabric of the building as possible. One of the team鈥檚 biggest challenges involved creating a new, large-scale building within the historic shell, without disrupting the latter鈥檚 iconic and listed nature.

鈥淭he team we assembled combined ten different specialisms,鈥� says Franck Robert, partner and UK structures lead, who led phase two of the Battersea Power Station redevelopment. 鈥淲e had experts from acoustics, bridge engineering and civil structures, fa莽ade engineering, fire engineering, ground engineering, inclusive environments, infrastructure, people movement, civil and structural engineering, and water, all working together to find solutions to the unique challenge of this project.鈥�

Sam Youdan, director, spent over 10 years on the Battersea Power Station project leading the heritage and heavy refurbishment design, as well as the site works. 鈥淲e spent a lot of time talking about risk, and how we would manage the risk profile鈥�, he says.

鈥淲ith an existing building, you can鈥檛 know everything on day one, and your understanding develops and evolves as you get to know the building. Looking at different elements and playing through different scenarios is a key part of what we do, and helps us inform our client and the wider design team of how we mitigate and manage the risks on the project.鈥�

Controlling building movements and retaining construction tolerances between the new and existing structures was a key priority for the team. Presets 鈥� the super-elevations factored in to account for the movements of the building during loading 鈥� were carefully considered, optimised, and responsive solutions were incorporated into the design.

Our structural engineers used steel ground beams 鈥� known as comb caps 鈥� to support the Power Station鈥檚 existing foundations. These large scale, below ground structural elements took the loads created by the new support structures constructed above, combining a compression pile and tension pile to create a 鈥榮ee-saw鈥� effect that achieved the required stability.

Elsewhere, the narrative of optimising new elements to work around the existing building continued. For the duplex apartments on top of Switch House West, an ambitious 11m cantilever was installed that allowed the building to reach over 鈥� but not exert load on 鈥� Control Room A and Turbine Hall A, the jewels in the heritage crown. An A-frame was placed at the very top of the living space, elegantly increasing the net lettable area of prime residential apartments by around 20,000ft², while meeting all heritage demands.

In the Boiler House, two vast tree-shaped structures were developed, each capable of supporting 30m x 30m of office floorplate over eight storeys, while also serving an ornamental function within the expansive 150m x 60m x 60m space. 爆料tv鈥檚 computational capability enabled us to take the architectural intent and translate it into impressive forms of monumental elegance, while creating open spaces in the public-facing retail and entertainment areas below.

Such was the size and complexity of the project, with its derelict state and Grade II* listed status, it has often been referred to as the 鈥楨verest of real estate鈥�. Having scaled the heights of these challenges, the legacy of our work at Battersea Power Station goes deeper, wider and ever higher, as we continue to apply this experience to our latest projects.

 鈥淲ith the climate emergency, the world has changed鈥濃�� says Franck. 鈥淲e need to focus on retrofit, and embodied carbon is at the top of the agenda for most of our projects. Given this, our ability to apply the learning from Battersea Power Station to accurately assess the impact of working around existing structures has been hugely valuable.鈥�

Sam adds: 鈥淎t Battersea Power Station, we pretty much solved every problem you can think of. What we took from that was the expertise and experience to look at very complicated projects, break them down and lay the challenges out in a very clear way to find straightforward solutions.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 know all there was to know about Battersea Power Station on day one. But we have the experience of going on that journey, of managing the risks and unlocking the opportunities, and what a destination it has become.鈥�