The Strata Energy Saving Building
If you’ve been and wandering around South London recently and haven’t been completely engrossed in the pavement, then you may have noticed the erection of an extraordinary structure that has come to dominate the scenery.
The Strata building in the borough of Elephant and Castle has taken a new approach to residential building that aims to reduce energy consumption and the strains on the city’s gas supplier. The boldly styled building – bold is an understatement sitting, as it does in the middle of a concrete miasma of old council projects and road junctions – incorporates three wind turbines into the its structure. These turbines are projected to provide up to 8% of the building’s energy needs. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s enough to run all the needs of the communal spaces – including lifts and lobby lighting.
Of course a building as visually striking (or imposing) as this is bound to generate some controversy and it’s not only the looks of the building that have generated contention, the building certainly wasn’t cheap, was hugely complicated to build and it’s unknown whether the residents in the flats below will tolerate any possible noise.
Still as an urban regeneration project and a concept model for future sustainable residential scheme, I think Strata’s a big winner.