Battersea Power Station: Bringing an icon back to life

The iconic Grade II* listed Battersea Power Station has opened to the public for the first time after years of refurbishment.

Our designers and engineers worked on 'Phase Two' of the project for nearly a decade, part of a team that helped turn the biggest brownfield site in Europe into a vibrant mixed-use destination.

Architects Wilkinson Eyre led 'Phase Two' and we provided MEP and environmental consultancy for the scheme, which included creating residential and leisure spaces, shops, bars, restaurants and entertainment venues. We are also currently working on phases 3A and 3B of the project.

All MEP (Mechanical, Electrical and Public Health) services were designed to maintain the English Heritage requirements for listed buildings with the building’s ‘serviced routes’ meticulously designed to ensure that heritage features were not obscured or subject to mechanical fixings. Our work on Phase Two included:


Maximising lettable area and roof space

By ‘sandwiching’ the main air-handling plant space midway up the building, we ensured the most efficient use of space was achieved in terms of the vertical distribution of services and the absence of roof plant. Both these elements maximised rental space and enabled the roof terraces to have unrestricted views across London. 

Reimagining the historic Turbine Halls

The turbine halls have been repurposed into a retail, dining and leisure areas. We carried out a thermal assessment to demonstrate that the unconditioned spaces maintained the CIBSE guidance on adaptive comfort and BS EN 15251 recommendations indoor environmental parameters. 

The assessment concluded that good thermal comfort could be achieved without the need for mechanical conditioning and ventilation and the spatial, capital expenditure and reduced energy consumption was welcomed by the client. 

Clever service coordination
The plant located at basement includes the HV electrical infrastructure equipment and the Energy Centre (which was designed by Vital and is being operated by Equans). It provides heating and cooling to the occupants and the development is served by two High Voltage supplies with diverse routes to further reduce plant space commonly required by standby generation equipment.  

Service corridors to retail areas were removed from the scheme and chapmanbdsp re-engineered the services to ensure useable space was created.  Plant areas were optimised to create retail storage areas at basement areas to enable tenants to make full use of their trading areas.

BIM model responsibility

We were responsible for the full MEP design to RIBA stage 4 and maintained a permanent presence up to completion within the on-site design office.  The refurbishment was undertaken using a construction management approach, implemented by Mace, with final co-ordination minimised through the development of a BIM model.

Repurposing the iconic Control Rooms

The main control room have been refurbished and repurposed as leisure and events areas. We implemented a design which concealed the services as to not detract from the heritage finishes and equipment. The original Control Panels were refurbished and brought to life with modern LED lighting.

A new HQ for Apple

We designed the shell and core services to the commercial office spaces at levels 5 to 10, which were been leased to Apple. The MEP services design was a mixed-use ventilation system to be implemented as part of the fit-out. This maximized use of the atrium space by the re-direction of fresh air at the central plant.

A future for the Peregrines

A first for chapmanbdsp designers was the MEP serving to the on-site Peregrine Falcons. The nesting box is complete with a ledge terrace, drainage and views across the Thames towards Westminster.

Rainwater attenuation

The impact of surface water discharge to the utility system was minimised by the provision of attenuation and outfalls to the Thames.  

Lifts and escalators

We worked in conjunction with D2E to deliver a total of 66 lifts and 20 escalators within the development, including the infrastructure to serve the Scenic lift location in the North-East chimney.