Is It Just Us, Or Does This New Tower Have Something Of The Teletubbies About It?

M@
By M@ Last edited 67 months ago

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Is It Just Us, Or Does This New Tower Have Something Of The Teletubbies About It?

For anyone bemoaning the generic, identikit appearance of London's new housing developments, we give you Heliport Heights...

This 20-storey tower block is set for construction beside the heliport in Battersea. Its somewhat unusual design is from the studio of the late Will Alsop, perhaps best known in London for the idiosyncratic Peckham Library.

This structure, too, is a wee bit unusual. The tower will be enveloped in a kind of crazy-paving russet cladding, punctuated by misshapen portholes and candy-coloured balconies.

We mean this in a good way, but it strikes us as the kind of project Po or Tinky Winky might have worked on, had they grown tired of the Teletubby house and graduated from architecture school.

The tower — due to start construction in late 2018 or early 2019 — will loom on stilts over an existing office block. Like this:

That silver bauble is a meeting room or conference space. It's in the spirit of Alsop's previous meeting pods at the Centre of the Cell in Whitechapel.

The 15 apartments will be well beyond the price point of most people reading this. Novelty plus exclusivity often breeds controversy and we expect the tower will be despised and loved in equal measure. Now, who's for tubby custard?

View planning documents here.

Last Updated 22 August 2018