Tag Archives: London Skyline

It may have a futuristic-sounding name, and somewhat resembles the helmet of a Transformer, but Strata resides in the unlikely district of Elephant and Castle in the borough of Southwark, near The Coronet Theatre and the London College of Communication. Its bold design has inevitably brought forth a host of nicknames; The Electric Razor and The Lipstick seem to be the most kind out of a wide selection. Yet Strata has been marked as a world’s first, being the first tower of its kind to have its own wind turbines situated within the tower itself and not shunted off to the side somewhere, out of view. Indeed, Strata actively celebrates its eco-credentials, proudly showcasing its three turbines at the very top of the tower. Some love the idea of living in such a cutting-edge project; others have condemned it as an eyesore. Having been completed in 2010 and home to over 1,000 residents at full occupation, we can truly put this mini-revolution in skyscrapers to the test.

Strata – Photo courtesy of BFLS

CONCEPT

Strata was conceived by the London-based firm BFLS (formerly Hamiltons), who have designed for a wide variety of clients including British Land, Land Securities and Imperial College, London. The brief for the architect was heavily weighted around sustainability and energy efficiency, meaning that the design had to incorporate both aesthetics and practicalities. The sleek slope to the front of the tower serves to improve the aerodynamics of the building, scooping the air up towards the turbines and increasing efficiency. In a similar fashion, the housing of the turbines not only serves to make an aesthetic feature out of them, but also increases their efficiency and energy production as well as reducing wind noise and vibration. This fusion of technology and practicality with the sharp edges and raw metal and glazing finishes to the structure harnesses the architectural school of futurism. This can especially be seen in the windows of the tower, running vertically full length down the tower, but with each storey slightly offset from its adjoining partners to create a kind of blocky zigzag effect that creates a feeling of motion and unease within the structure.

Turbines – courtesy of BFLS

FEATURES

First, and most obviously, Strata’s main feature is its sustainability, with its three nine-metre wind turbines residing at the very top of tower expected to produce 50MWh of electricity – enough to power the common areas of the tower, equating to approximately 8% of the building. Other features include its rainwater harvesting system, bespoke cladding that has a low air permeability leakage rate and the use of a combined heat and power system, meaning that Strata’s energy cost per flat is thought to be up to 40% less than the British housing average.

Photo courtesy of TheConstructionIndex

Strata, as a mixed use tower, has a sky lobby and a total of 8,000ft² commercial units on its premises, but primarily it functions as a residential tower. It has nine floors of affordable ‘Esprit’ apartments set aside, and a further nine flats in the adjacent ‘Pavilion’, seen on the right of the tower in the photo to the left, which have been sold by Family Mosaic Housing Association for shared ownership. The rest of the tower consists of 40 studio flats, 149 one-bedroom flats, 101 two-bedroom flats and 20 three-bedroom flats, along with a £2.5 million penthouse on the very top of the tower. These residents have access to the luxury features of the tower, including concierge, dedicated car parking in the basement level, 437 bicycle storage points and even the tower’s own intranet site, ‘inhabit’. From this, residents can order services such as laundry, ironing, cleaning and handymen, as well as receive news and travel updates for the local area, check promotions for local businesses and receive building announcements.

RECEPTION

Strata has had an extremely mixed reception to say the least. Being the first tower of its kind in Elephant and Castle has produced strong reactions, particularly as Strata is currently the tallest residential tower in Britain. In November 2010 the prestigious Concrete Society Award, which shortlisted The Hepworth in Wakefield and the Chips Building in Manchester, praised its ‘innovative column structure’ and said that Strata was ‘striking architecturally, a considerable feat of construction’. However, in the August of 2010, Strata won the Carbuncle Cup for Britain’s ugliest new building and was described as ‘quite simply the worst tall building ever constructed in London’ for ‘services to urban impropriety and breakfast-extracting ugliness’. Despite this, there are plans for two more towers to be constructed on sites adjacent to Strata, and Strata itself has been hailed as a sign of the coming regeneration of Elephant and Castle, with all but four of its flats pre-sold before completion.

1 Blackfriars Road goes by many names: the Jumeirah Tower, 1 Blackfriars Road, Blackfriars Tower or the Beetham-Mirax Tower, to name a few. A tower with so many identities suggests that its design may slip under the radar or become muddled, but the Beetham Tower has a simple, strong and distinctive outline, making it stand out from other planned skyscrapers in the area. Its problem doesn’t lie in its architecture, but in its finances – and in 2011’s economic climate, this is a big problem indeed. Hold-ups caused by English Heritage complaining about the height and scale of the Tower led to several redesigns, pushing the construction start date further and further back whilst both developers suffered financial difficulties as part of the recession. Having previously arranged an £80 million loan from RBS, the tower was officially taken into administration in October 2010 after the UK developer Beetham Organisation and Russian developer Mirax failed to secure further funding for the project. It was announced in November 2010 that the site on Blackfriars Road is to be marketed and sold by the administrators in early 2011, although in a joint statement Mirax and the Beetham Organisation said that they expected to be taking the project out of administration ‘very shortly, in association with new investors’. No offer has, as yet, been made from the pair to buy back the site, however. In today’s ever-changing economic circumstances, it’s a case of watch-this-space.

Render of the Beetham Tower, courtesy of Cityscape

CONCEPT

The Beetham Tower is very much an example of new British architecture – backed by Liverpool-based Beetham Organisation, which has a portfolio that includes towers in Manchester, Liverpool, Brighton and Birmingham. The architect, Ian Simpson of Ian Simpson Architects, also worked on the Beetham Towers in Manchester and in Birmingham and Urbis in Manchester, developing a simple but sleek urban style for large commercial and hotel structures. The 163 metre, 49 storey tower started out on a much grander scale, originally weighing in at a 220 metre development, but concerns as to the scale of the tower compared to the buildings around it led to its revised status. The height still puts it on a similar bearing as Tower 42 and The Gherkin, but as it stands away from the cluster of towers planned around Bishopsgate, it was suggested that its original height would have overpowered its surroundings. The unusual tapered shape of the building comes from the wish to protect views from Waterloo Bridge towards King’s Reach Tower to the east. The Shard would also be visible along this sightline.

Render courtesy of Cityscape

The glass skin overlaying the coloured cladding underneath is designed to look seamless. The architect has described wanting to create a structure that ‘is very sculptural in its expression’ and is ‘interested in light rather than material, [...]trying to create as elegant and beautiful a form as we can’. The external skin of glazing also helps to somewhat reduce its visibility and impact on the skyline by reflecting the sky and giving it a slight camouflaging effect.

FEATURES

The Tower has been designed as a dual-use development, housing both residential and hotel accommodation. As the Dubai-based Jumeirah Group is the anchor tenant of the project, the hotel in question is planned to be a six-star, ultra-luxurious Jumeirah hotel with world-class facilities, including a ballroom, conference space and a health and fitness centre with spa. In addition to this, a restaurant and bar at the 28^th and 29^th levels will separate hotel and residential space, with 64 apartments planned for the tower. One of the penthouse apartments is already reserved for the architect, Ian Simpson. Each of the luxury apartments will have its own internal Winter Garden, and 79 underground car parking spaces are planned to be spread across five underground levels.

Render courtesy of Cityscape

Within the curved glazed crown of the tower, a Sky Garden is planned, along with a public viewing platform. Other public space will be provided at the base of the tower, with a public plaza housing cafes, restaurants and a sitting area.

RECEPTION

CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, has broadly supported the scheme, calling it a ‘bold addition to the London skyline’, although adding that ‘the success of this scheme will depend on the quality of the materials, detailing and finishes’. Southwark Council has said that the tower is a ‘tall building of exceptional architectural quality’ with a ‘delicately sculptural form’, and Russell Harris QC, representing the Mirax-Beetham developers, has said that the tower will be ‘a thoroughly positive and welcome addition to the townscape’. As always, though, others haven’t been so positive; Boris Johnson opposed the design at the public inquiry for the skyscraper, and the Waterloo Community Development Group have declared it ‘sarcophagus-like’ and suggested that it would cause ‘irreparable harm to London’s culture and leisure quarter’. With the current economic crisis, however, it remains to be seen how this project will develop – and if the Beetham Tower’s fluid, sculptural form will grace the Blackfriars area, or if the project will founder completely.