'Transformations': a Short Film on Battersea Power Station
This short film by Jim Stephenson and Peter Landers tells the story of the restoration of one of London’s most iconic buildings.
In 2022, we completed the transformation of Battersea Power Station. This particularly challenging site, with the enormous listed structure at its heart, had languished for 40 years after the power station’s closure before finding new vitality. The project exemplifies the challenge of reimagination: requiring a radical shift in how the building is used and understood.
The power station's vast scale and industrial legacy had left the space ill-suited to modern demands and safety standards. Yet such challenges can often foster the richest creativity. By focusing on the building’s “good bones” rather than its complications, the team successfully wove many uses into the historic fabric, transforming Battersea into a vibrant mixed-use destination at the heart of a new waterside district.
The launch of this film coincides with our 'Transformations' campaign.
At WilkinsonEyre, we're currently thinking about adaptive reuse and retrofit – what we have termed ‘Transformations’. Today, older buildings sit at the centre of one of the industry’s most pressing disputes: retrofit or rebuild? As increasing demand for best-in-class spaces collides with limited availability and a high number of outdated or obsolete builds, reuse has emerged as a political and commercial priority. More than a technical exercise, transformation is an act of stewardship, imagination and curiosity, allowing us to preserve cultural memory, serve contemporary needs and bridge the past, present and future.
The campaign places WilkinsonEyre's projects into five categories: Reimage, Revive, Rethink, Respect and Response, each of which we will be unpacking in the following weeks.
Through a series of events and an in-house exhibition, we’re exploring the themes, challenges, and opportunities that define Transformations, from humanising industrial scale to reinforcing cultural continuity and adapting older buildings to new ways of working, living, and experiencing the world.
Last week, we hosted a roundtable discussion on the theme of ‘Making Retrofit Stack Up’. Our panel - Chris Beard of DP9, Bernard Duffy of Core Five and Yasmin Al-ani Spence and Sebastien Ricard of WilkinsonEyre - discussed the barriers that retrofit projects often face, sharing stories from their own careers and projects.
Covering issues like economic deterrents, specialist knowledge shortages and investor reluctance, the panel debated how the industry should best evolve to ensure the future of the built environment is both sustainable and feasible.
