DMA

Last Friday we had an office visit to the Accumulator Tower at Churchill Gardens, one of several Grade II listed buildings in the modernist Churchill Gardens estate designed by Powell and Moya in the 40s and completed in the 50s. The tower was linked up to Battersea Power Station over the river and designed to provide heating to the estate by using excess heat generated by the power station – very forward thinking!

As DMA have done a lot of work in and around the estate, we were invited by CityWest Homes to visit the tower, hear about its history and to climb up it to check out the structure and take in the amazing views next to the river. David Miller previously worked for Powell and Moya and Peter Baynes (a colleague of David’s there) from the recently Stirling prize nominated Baynes and Mitchell also joined us, together with Chris Richardson of City West Homes.

It was a fascinating visit to this highly innovative and sustainable solution that is still in use, although nowadays powered by its own generators, supplying cost effective energy to numerous Westminster estates and the new Sir Simon Milton UTC has just been connected too.

For more information about the tower, see this short film.