Energy Centre, Stratford, London

Architect	John McAslan + Partners, Architect and Landscape Architect COFELY, Detailed Engineering Design AKT II, Structural Engineer
Date Built	2010
Location	London 2012 Olympic Park
Description
The King's Yard Energy Centre was built on the site of a former sweets factory at the edge of the London 2012 Olympic Park It was designed to supply energy for the Olympic and Paralympic facilities during the games and after the games to the various buildings that will be the legacy of the redevelopment. The architect of the project was John McAslan + Partners and they describe the new Energy Centre as, " ... technically advanced and environmentally considerate. Embedded in the community, rather than hidden from it. .... The practice’s response to site, and public perception of power generation, has been to develop an architecture for the Energy Centres that is highly distinct in both form and function – a strong 21st century industrial aesthetic featuring a 45m screened flue. Key features such as the tall ventilation flues and the flanking walls have been given special attention." The project won a number of major awards including: RIBA Regional Awards 2013, London East, Olympic Energy Centres RIBA National Awards 2013, Sustainability, Olympic Energy Centres CHPA Awards 2011, The Public Sector Award, Olympic Park & Stratford City Reflecting on the design of the Energy Centre, Jay Merrick writing in the Independent in August of 2010 said, "McAslan is one of the most stringent architectural rationalists, and this scheme brings a super-crisp modernism to power station design. The practice has avoided excess – though the blood-red staircase is positively surreal by its standards. The semi-opaque metal screening and low-level glazing lends the design a diagrammatic clarity; it also gives power generation an almost literal visibility." McAslan worked alongside Cofely East London Energy, who have a contract to operate the plant for 40 years. The "greenwisebusiness.co.uk" website describes the resulting power station as follows, "Although principally gas-fired, it also includes a biomass boiler, which alone saves over 1,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, and the whole plant is designed to be easily converted to use fuel from biogasification, as and when that becomes fully viable. A combination of solar PV panels and mini wind turbines – strikingly sited along the main concourse through the Olympic Park – completes the renewable generation picture. But the main gains are in efficiency, where a combination of insulation and intelligent design has ensured that all the main buildings exceed minimum regulation standards by at least 15 per cent."