Sustainable London

The exhibition Sustainable London, Addressing Climate Change in the Capital, is a show that is a primer on how climate change is being tackled through planning and in new developments across London. The 61 different case studies on display display the real progress that is being made towards the creation of a sustainable 21st Century city. Happily, several of the projects have already been reviewed at treehugger: BedZED, a mixed use solar urban village, the Alpine House, a pavilion for alpine plants, at Kew Garden and an environmental school addition. There are lots of interesting surprises. Gallions Park is a zero carbon development, proposed by Greenpeace. On this brownfield site, residential units will be built with electricity generated on site by a heat and power plant that will use bio-mass, such as wood, for its fuel so that the site will produce zero net carbon emissions over the course of a year. The Palestra building, by Will Alsop a well-known British architect, has 14 micro-wind turbines inobtrusively placed on its roof. Combined with the solar panels, they will supply the good-looking new 12 storey office building with 4% of its total energy needs.

Vauxhall Cross, a bus and tube station is another striking landmark. The unique-looking structure generates 30% of the energy to power the station. London City Hall is another distinctive building, with its geometrical shape designed to reduce heat loss, whilst shaped to lean back towards the south, providing natural shading. All heat generated by computers and lights is recycled. Cold ground water, taken through two bore holes to the Thames river underneath, is used to cool the building and for the toilets. Paradise Park Children’s Centre (pictured) has a vertical hydroponic garden on its façade. Fed by recycled rainwater,thirty different species, and 7,000 individual plants were planted into slabs. A private home and studio (top right photo) looks like a bunker but it is remarkable for the fact that most of the materials used in its construction were recycled: gathered by the owner along the Thames shore. :: Sustainable London