Who wants to ride the Battersea Power Station Rollercoaster?

Architects proposed an exciting redesign for the abandoned power station

Although Battersea Power Station’s housing redevelopment is taking off, it could have careened off in an entirely new direction if a team of architects had their way.

Why not a playground and museum? That is what would have happened if the “Architectural Ride London” proposal from Atelier Zündel Cristea got onto the tracks.

Battersea Power Station’s former owners began work converting the site into an indoor theme park in 1987 but the project ground to a halt due to lack of funding.

However, the Atelier’s new idea goes even further, with a winding rollercoaster going around and through the station. Their concept was awarded first prize in the ArchTriumph Museum of Architecture Competition in March.

“Our project puts the Power Station on centre stage, the structure itself enhancing the site through its impressive scale, its architecture, and its unique brick material,” the Atelier explains.

“We have introduced the foreign element of a rail into the space of the power station, which will function above all in animating the huge space. It will offer visitors entering the structure a primary pathway, allowing them to take in the essential layout of the building with a minimum of effort.

“With the pathway determined by the presence of the rail, the simple fact of moving through the exterior and interior spaces of the station begins to make sense. In its spatial ambition, our project encourages play and fun, categories largely devalued in the traditional world of art.”