Prepare to be blown away: the latest addition to London‘s skyline is a striking modern skyscraper that is heralded as the world’s first building with wind turbines built in! Nicknamed “The Razor”, the 148 meter-tall Strata tower is topped with a trio of turbines that will produce enough power to meet 8% of its energy needs.
We’ve seen skyscrapers studded with wind turbines before, but the Strata is the first building to integrate turbines directly into its facade. Developed and contracted by Brookfield Europe, the tower is a tricky engineering feat indeed, especially granted the gusty blasts of wind that construction crews had to deal with while raising it.
Measuring in at 42 stories tall, the Strata tower has enough height to eclipse the buildings surrounding it, allowing it to take full advantage of the area’s 35mph wind speeds. The tower is also designed to utilize the Venturi effect created by nearby structures to force wind through the turbines at accelerated rates, generating an expected 50MWh of electricity annually.
15 Responses to “The Strata: World’s First Skyscraper With Built-In Wind Turbines”
get the free Inhabitat newsletter
more popular stories >
more popular stories >
more popular stories >
only one that sees the resemblance?
http://www.blogcdn.com/nintendo.joystiq.com/media/2009/01/balrog108.png
While perhaps new for London, how about the World Trade Center in Bahrain? It’s had turbines for a while now and can produce up to 1300 mwh per year.
http://bahrainwtc.com/
To echo what gktozer said- this is NOT the “first” skyscraper with integrated wind turbines- that honor goes to the Bahrain World Trade Center. BWTC stands over 300 meters talls- twice the height of the Razor
Beautiful structure! I’ll make a point of seeing it when I visit London. I wonder how much electricity it generates?
Given that 8% of the building’s energy consumption seems to be 50 MWh, the building as a whole consumes 575 MWh/year. I guess that’s better than consuming 625 MWh/year.
“that is heralded as the world’s first building with wind turbines”
Nope, not the first. Not sure what the first building would be, but here is one in Portland, Oregon with an article date of August, 2009, which would best this building by nearly a year.
http://blog.indigo12west.com/2009/08/up-go-the-turbines/
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=13065
Hmmm,.. Britain hasn’t managed to be first at anything for years and this is most definitely not a first! The UK has a very poor attitude to renewable energy. Planning consent for even small projects is seldom given so it’s nice to see at least one slipping through! I tried to get solar heating installed,.. and was told “.. not possible in a national park area.” (So more pylons are OK then?)
The 3 turbines in Bahrain’s World Trade Center were installed March 2006, and became operational some months after this. J. Vinson
I think you have all missed the line at the beginning of the article which states “We’ve seen skyscrapers studded with wind turbines before, but the Strata is the first building to integrate turbines directly into its facade”.
It even has a link to the Bahrain World Trade Centre.
This is actually part of the buildings structure as opposed to being placed between two parts of the building.
What’s the noise pollution of these turbines??
Great feats of engineering mixed with “green” ideas are definitely good. It does not matter who was the first, every bit of effort counts. But how about the materials and processes involved in getting this wonderful structures up, have they also gone “green”?
hi,very nice devolepment
I take it that if they require to move the building in the future. They just add wings and change the turbines to fans.
The trouble long mains lead.
Great idea.
Interesting, we should concentrate more on building structures that are environmental friendly all over the world.
Eco friendly credentials are all very well but surely building a 42 storey tower constructed mainly from concrete and glass defeats the object of being ‘green’. I feel that the wind turbines are a complete fad and living in the area I have only seen the turbines actually moving on one occasion. I wonder whether the Architects and Engineers actually thought they’d work or whether designing them into the scheme just improved their chance of planning and approval from the community…