London’s Decaying Battersea Power Station Brought Back To Life As Mixed-Use Development

October 24, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The old Battersea Power Station – a huge coal-powered electric generation station along the Thames in London – has been revived after decades of sitting derelict, opening up 10 days ago as a mixed-use development that includes retail, dining and high-end residential.

The giant brick industrial block has been restored and spruced up in much the same way as another station further down the Thames that is now the Tate Modern art gallery, but with this new one it is much more about commerce and lifestyle than art. It’s notable from the context of digital signage in that it is an entirely new build of retail in a big space, so it will be interesting to see what was done.

Like this Nike store (see Linkedin video below), that is using pretty tight pitch mesh LED in the windows that face out into one of the towering old turbine halls. I’ve written about numerous shops and showrooms using semi-transparent LED in windows, but it’s interesting to see a Top 10 global brand adopting the technology.

It can work well in this kind of setting because of its adapted industrial characteristics, with other infrastructure like lighting and heating runs in the ceiling exposed. I’m not sure it works as well in sleeker, fully finished environments.

There are several videos on Youtube that do a walk-through of the renovated development and new buildings that surround it. They give you a sense of a lot of digital being used in shop windows.

On my list now for a visit In January, stopping over on the way to ISE.

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