Strata Spins Into Action

For the past three years a tower called Strata has been gradually rising above the skyline of Elephant and Castle in south London. With its lipstick top and three wind turbines making it resemble a Philishave, the 147.9 metre tall residential tower quickly got the name of Electric Razor.

With the turbines now about to spin into action and residents moving into the 310 apartments inside, Skyscrapernews visited to check out the BFLS (previously Hamiltons Architects) designed building before it springs to life.

One enters Strata through a double height lobby with a similar monochrome colour scheme to the cladding that takes you directly to a bank of elevators from which all the 310 apartments in the tower are accessed, and by which you can be swept to the upper levels in a matter of seconds.

With their own dedicated triple height atrium at the top of the tower, the penthouses are spectacular with huge sweeping double aspect views, double height mezzanines, and even baths that sit next to the floor to ceiling glazing 130 metres above the ground - something that should be a particularly relaxing experience at night.

Of course, the stars of the show aren't the penthouses but the wind turbines and Strata is the first tall buildng in the world to actually incorporate them into the design. There may be the World Trade Centre in Bahrain for example, but those feature the turbines hanging between the towers rather than fitted in them.

Here to increase the windflow, the three 9 metre bladed turbines sit in what are effectively tubes that help generate the venturi effect. As BFLS architect Yui Law was keen to explain, this means that the upper shape of the building manipulates the air pressure as the wind passes through it increasing the wind speed - something you can't do with a normal turbine - so even when there is a relatively calm day the power yield should be greater than a conventional turbine.

Inside the roof, the shape of the turbines are clearly visible with beams, columns and crossbracing creating the bottom halves of the structure. From there you can emerge through a small skylight and between the blades giving a supreme architectural experience if you are lucky enough to have the building owners turn them off for your arrival.

Despite all the effort at building the turbines they will only generate an average of 9% of the electricity used in Strata, or the equivalent of 30 two bedroomed apartments. The real importance was more proving it can be done and innovating new technologies. Future buildings that incorporate turbines should be able to deal with greater wind speeds, and run quieter whilst the technology, once proven, will be cheaper and easier to erect.

The facade leaks 50% less air than the current building regulations require meaning heat loss is a lot less. In addition there is also a heat recovery system so that heating can be recycled from apartment to apartment, low energy lighting, lighting turns on and off automatically in unoccupied communal areas but most importalty of all Strata will be hooked up to the Elephant and Castle district heating system, or MUSCo.

The end result of all this will be buildings emissions falling by 73.5% when compared to the buildings regulations benchmarks making the apartments amongst the cleanest and most environmentally friendly in the capital.

The penthouses range in value from £850,000 to £1.5 million for the most expensive which compares most favourably to other parts of London. One would expect to pay in excess of £10 million for one of the most expensive ones if it were in Canary Wharf however much of this is due to the location.

There may be some that see the purchase as a way to invest in an up and coming area of London but the scale of the redevelopment required in Elephant and Castle is massive, fragmented due to the number of individual developers, has been blown sideways by the current negative economic climate, and stands at the mercy of a new generation of Conservative politicians who may not be as sensitive to the regeneration of the area as Labour were.

For the investors who queued up to buy apartments off the developer, Brookfield, the financial success of their properties will hinge on the wider development at Elephant and Castle, but for those who want to actually live there they have one of the most distinctive addresses in London.