The Kraftwerk Wedel coal-fired power plant in Germany wrapped in a living wall. Copyright AZPA.
A massive German coal-fired power plant may be enveloped in living walls if an architectural firm has its way.
AZPA, a architectural firm in Barcelona and London, is proposing an €18 million (US$23.6 million) green facade to cover up the the Wedel Power Station, a ’60s era coal fired power plant in Hamburg. Additional landscaping would cost €4.5 million (US $5.9 million). The coal plant is currently run by energy utility Vattenfall.
The architectural firm likes the juxtaposition of the big industrial building and greenery.
“This project is aimed at providing Vattenfall with an aesthetic manifestation of a new integration between manmade processes and the natural environment,” writes the AZPA.
The firm still wants to retain aspects of the old and respect the building’s heritage.
The firm hopes to create a giant topiary game “. . . of a scale never seen before, a green mountain surrounded by dense vegetation.”
The green envelope, which would use mesh for creepers to grow on, would “. . . bring back the original ecosystem that once populated the margins of the Elbe: the riparian forest,” a type of vegetation that AZPA claims readily consumes CO2.
There would also be a variety of public amenities, such as bike paths, pedestiran walks, performance areas and a soccer pitch.
German is currently pursuing ambitious renewable energy targets and plans to reduce carbon emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. It is trying for a further 80% to 95% by 2050.
