Battersea Power Station has graced the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals, been used myriad films from Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage to recent Batman movie The Dark Knight, and has stood, empty but not unloved, since it was decommissioned in 1983, since when a sting of ill-fated redevelopment plans have come and gone.
Now, as part of the latest plan to turn Europe’s largest brick building into a luxury apartment and shopping complex, landscape and garden designer Andy Sturgeon has designed a tranquil roof-garden for the iconic London building.
The ‘Garden of the Elements’ will reference Fire, Water and Air, to embody the original use of the Power Station. The combined 2.5 acre gardens are designed to offer flexible green spaces and will fuse expansive communal gardens and more private, intimate spaces. Materials have been chosen to reflect and enhance the building’s architectural heritage and will incorporate recycled brick and steel elements from the original Power Station.
In one area, now named Switch House East, huge corten steel fins, wide lawns and mounded planting will respond to the architectural majesty of the building, referring to the ‘fire’ element. Terraced belvederes at either end of the garden will enable residents and office workers alike to enjoy far reaching views over London.
Switch House West will house a slender garden stretching 120 metres along a fluid, organic path to create a meandering green ‘riverine route’ connecting the building to its waterside setting and relating to the significance of water in the history and use of the building. Raised planters will make visitors feel as if they are walking among the planting.
In addition, an ethereal ‘garden in the sky’ with the largest glass atrium in London will be created in the new Boiler House Square crowning the building between the four chimneys. Embodying the ‘Air’ element of the design, this garden will be accessed exclusively from a series of luxury apartments where cloud-like planting will be set among vast dishes of shallow, reflective water creating an otherworldly quality.
