Buro Happold, the global practice of engineers, designers and advisers, is to be awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Major Project Award for Sustainability 2023. This annual Academy award recognises a team that has played a critical role in a major engineering project that has had a substantial impact on society and sustainability.
The award is made to Buro Happold for providing multi-disciplinary engineering solutions for the restoration of the Grade II* listed Battersea Power Station, which opened its doors to the public for the first time in October 2022 and is the centrepiece of a new riverside neighbourhood and business quarter for London, serviced by a Zone 1 extension to the London Underground Northern Line.
Sustainability was at the forefront of the major engineering-led project to bring new life to the iconic industrial building built between 1929 and 1955. Buro Happold’s involvement in Battersea Power Station’s regeneration began in 1999. The team worked collaboratively with client Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC) and architect Wilkinson Eyre between 2012 and 2023. The team’s contribution includes the brick replacement programme, reconstruction of the four iconic chimneys plus critical roles in schemes across the former 42-acre brownfield site.
Sam Youdan, Project Lead for Battersea Power Station Phase 2 and Director at Buro Happold, said:
“It has been a pleasure and a privilege working on the Power Station over the last 10 years, restoring and repurposing this icon for the next generation to use and enjoy.
“I feel like we have been custodians of the building whilst we have brought it back to life. It was an amazingly emotional feeling to see the public enter the building for the first time at the opening and this award is a testament to the huge team involved that made this possible.”
The Buro Happold team receiving this award is:
Justin Phillips Project Principal
Franck Robert Project Director
Wolf Mangelsdorf FREng Project Design Lead
Michael Brooks Project Lead - New Build Superstructure
Sam Youdan Project Lead – Restored Building Elements and Sub-structure
Rachel Monteith Project Lead - Ground Engineer
Battersea Power Station provided one-fifth of London’s electricity before it was decommissioned in 1983. The vast structure was a complex challenge to repurpose with several failed attempts made before it was purchased by a Malaysian consortium of businesses in 2012 with ambitions to restore the building to its former glory and open it up to the public for the first time in history.
The Buro Happold team developed a unique understanding of the building’s fabric and structural behaviour that was vital in maximising sustainable reuse of the structure and materials, sequencing temporary works and installing elements subject to extremely large forces.
Buro Happold established and led the Conservation Steering Group Committee with key stakeholders including BPSDC, Historic England, the London Borough of Wandsworth and local community groups. Together they agreed that the four chimneys were beyond safe repair. They were dismantled to create new geometric replicas on site around strong internal steel frameworks. This required 600 tonnes – 25,000 wheelbarrow loads – of concrete and 1,500 litres of paint using 1940s processes to ensure perfect replicas.
Parts of the brick clad steel structure were over 90 years old. The steel frame had moved over the years causing cracked bricks and allowing water seepage that corroded the steelwork. The team took down the historic brickwork, painted the steel with a protective coating and reassembled the bricks including sourcing additional bricks from the original brickyard.
Sustainability highlights
- Re-use of the existing building structures – foundation, columns, beams, slabs led to saving more than 36,000 tons of C02e of legacy carbon, equivalent to about 20% of the overall total embodied carbon within the primary structural frame.
- Over 1,750,000 replacement bricks were specially made by brickmakers in Gloucestershire and Shropshire that made the original bricks back in the 1930s and 1950s.
- Refurbishment of external elevations masonry resulted in a saving of approximately 4000 tons of C02e of legacy carbon.
- Buro Happold found a solution for instrumentation and monitoring to help protect the listed structure.
- Raised the existing listed Thames River wall and identified climate resilient sustainable drainage solutions.
Notes for editors
- Battersea Power Station is one of central London’s largest, most visionary new riverside neighbourhoods. The regeneration project is seeing the creation of a vibrant, mixed-use destination offering a community of homes, shops, restaurants, offices, culture and leisure venues, as well as 19 acres of public space, all serviced by an extension to the London Underground Northern Line.
- The Battersea Power Station project covers 42 acres and includes 3.5m sq ft of mixed commercial space, together with over 4,000 new homes.
- The successful regeneration of Battersea Power Station will create 20,000 new jobs, generating long term career opportunities for local residents. A new NHS medical facility is also being built.
- Over 100 shops, restaurants, bars and unique leisure experiences, as well as approx. 550,000 sq ft of office space and over 1,600 homes, have been completed across the first three phases - Circus West Village, the Grade II* listed Power Station and Electric Boulevard – with more to come in the future phases.
- With the Zone 1 Battersea Power Station Underground station on the Northern Line Extension, the estate is only a 15 minute journey from the West End and the City. It also has its very own Uber Boat by Thames Clippers pier and is 15 minute journey from Embankment, 20 minutes from Blackfriars, 30 minutes from Putney and 40 minutes from Canary Wharf. Battersea Power Station is easily accessible by bus, bike, car and train too.
- The wider Battersea Power Station development is owned by a consortium of Malaysian investors comprised of S P Setia (40%), Sime Darby Property (40%) and The Employees’ Provident Fund (20%), with the commercial assets within the Power Station building now being directly owned by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and EPF.
The Major Project Award for Sustainability is for a team that has played a critical role in a major engineering project that has had a substantial impact on society and sustainability. It recognises the contribution of a team of up to five engineers, based in the UK, who have delivered a major engineering project that has had a substantial impact on society and sustainability. The project can come from any branch of engineering. Previous winners include the engineers from National Grid and Statnett behind the North Sea Link Interconnector Project.
Annual Awards Dinner 2023. This year’s Royal Academy of Engineering Awards Dinner takes place in London on Thursday 13 July. Along with the announcement of the winner of this year’s MacRobert Award, the event will also celebrate the winners of other awards and prizes including the Princess Royal Silver Medals, the Rooke Award, the Major Project Award for Sustainability and the RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year.
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Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.
For more information please contact: Sue Garland at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 (0)7720288438; email: [email protected]