The most state-of-the-art natural gas power plant in the world has recently been completed on Lausward in Düsseldorf’s harbour. It has been supplying the city with climate-friendly electricity and district heat since the beginning of 2016, and is therefore making a considerable contribution towards a more secure energy supply within the city and region. The new natural gas power plant is an important milestone on the way to a carbon-neutral city, which the state capital is striving to achieve by 2050.
Norway, a country that generates more than 80% of its electricity from hydropower, has added to its renewable repertoire in the guise of a beautifully Kebony-clad 30GWh plant. The plant is situated deep within the mountains of Helgeland, a hiker’s paradise just below the Arctic Circle. The region is known for its unique coastline and spectacular mountain formations and the architects wanted the plant’s design to be inspired by and reflect the landscape, whilst also functioning as an attraction for hikers in the back country wilderness.
The power plant illustrate the energy of water and its dynamics. The conciseness and the rhythm of forms was developed by the creatures of water, hydraulic rollers, cavitation appearances and overflow principles. Although pressed by such a regime Under such regime the required massive statics could still be designed in a sparkling and elegant way, creating a popular public zone upon the river Salzach. An infrastructure was transformed to a social sculpture.
In the outskirts of Hamburg, on the banks of the Elbe sits Wedel, where a new, energy-efficient gas
and steam turbine power plant is planned for the former coal-fired power station site.
The Punibach hydroelectric power station is conceived as a fracture in the landscape. Harmonically integrated in its surroundings, it suddently brakes it open and reveals the machines in its interiors, which serve to transform natural powers into useful energy.
Background
The client, HelgelandsKraft AS, is a large producer of hydraulic electricity in northern parts of Norway. In 2008 they started planning several new hydraulic power stations with high environmental ambitions. From the beginning their task for the architect was to find the best way to make their new power stations adapt to the site, and at the same time function as attractions and destinations. The general idea from the architects at stein hamre arkitektkontor, is the design of the new stations should reflect characteristics of the locations. At the same time the buildings should be spectacular. They should also tell the story about the production of power.
The amorphous form appears both gentle and dynamic, resembling, among other things, a large fish. But it can also be viewed simply as a volume inspired by the motion of waves – as if the structure had taken shape as a flowing, swelling mass and then solidified. The form of this hydroelectric power station traces and dramatizes the channelled dynamism of the water as it flows into the holding basin, down through the turbines, and back into the River Iller. Another obvious association is with eroded stone; in the surrounding Allgäu region, not far from the Alps, such isolated rock formations are a common sight.
Article source: Branimir Medić & Pero Puljiz, de Architekten Cie
This power station is an instrument of education: designed to develop a sensibility for the consumption of energy and sustainable cohabitation. Combined heat and power plants are usually neutral industrial structures that are situated at some inconspicuous location. By contrast, the Stadshaard (literally the ‘city hearth’) stands at a prominent spot in Roombeek, where a neutral building would be out of place. With the Stadshaard’s dimensions (a building 10 metres high with a 40-metre chimney) it would, moreover, be impossible to realize an ‘invisible’ building that merges with the surroundings.
Tags: Enschede, The Netherlands Comments Off on Artistic amenity Stadshaard in Enschede, The Netherlands by Branimir Medić & Pero Puljiz, de Architekten Cie
With a rising global population and increasing political focus on the future of power generation, the task of designing a 49 mega-watt, bio-mass fuelled power station in Stockton-On-Tees is an interesting design challenge.
Power Flowers, or Urban Windmills, are the result of an ongoing investigation into the sculptural potential of wind energy. Can we turn windmills into objects of desire?
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