RX401344
The main control room at the now disused Fawley Power Station on Southampton Water is an astounding ancillary building.
When it opened the ‘Tracy Island industrial’ control room was dubbed “The Flying Saucer” by the press because that is exactly what it looks like: an aluminium-domed concrete drum, connected by a bridge to the turbine hall and hovering on concrete piers, looking like Thunderbird 2 might drop out at any moment.
The interior was no less futuristic with its curving walls, stacked up with dials, controls and flickering screens broken up by a strip of windows giving almost 360 degree views of Southampton Water.
The ceiling lights radiate from the central pillar, spiral staircases take you down to the lobby, detailed in teak and polished concrete.
Alongside the control room is a narrow, concrete dock which could accommodate and oil tanker should the enormous Esso refinery next-door be unable to supply the station, it also provided seawater to be pumped around the turbines to cool them.
The canteen building projects over the dock, four triangular sections in laminated Douglas fir, which house the dining room, changing facilities and kitchens. With large wooden-framed windows below a dynamic, interlocking sail design for the roof, the design is distinctly different from the Brutalist-influenced control room. It looks much more of-our-time, like a newly-opened pavilion in a Danish park, not a canteen for industrial workers in 1960s Hampshire.
The industrial site is in the process of being cleared to make way for a "Waterside" residential development.
In the meantime the area is being used for the storage and painting of large wind turbine blades manufactured on the nearby Isle of Wight by VESTAS. They are transported by motorised launch via the dock.
RX401344
The main control room at the now disused Fawley Power Station on Southampton Water is an astounding ancillary building.
When it opened the ‘Tracy Island industrial’ control room was dubbed “The Flying Saucer” by the press because that is exactly what it looks like: an aluminium-domed concrete drum, connected by a bridge to the turbine hall and hovering on concrete piers, looking like Thunderbird 2 might drop out at any moment.
The interior was no less futuristic with its curving walls, stacked up with dials, controls and flickering screens broken up by a strip of windows giving almost 360 degree views of Southampton Water.
The ceiling lights radiate from the central pillar, spiral staircases take you down to the lobby, detailed in teak and polished concrete.
Alongside the control room is a narrow, concrete dock which could accommodate and oil tanker should the enormous Esso refinery next-door be unable to supply the station, it also provided seawater to be pumped around the turbines to cool them.
The canteen building projects over the dock, four triangular sections in laminated Douglas fir, which house the dining room, changing facilities and kitchens. With large wooden-framed windows below a dynamic, interlocking sail design for the roof, the design is distinctly different from the Brutalist-influenced control room. It looks much more of-our-time, like a newly-opened pavilion in a Danish park, not a canteen for industrial workers in 1960s Hampshire.
The industrial site is in the process of being cleared to make way for a "Waterside" residential development.
In the meantime the area is being used for the storage and painting of large wind turbine blades manufactured on the nearby Isle of Wight by VESTAS. They are transported by motorised launch via the dock.