Once the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster is finished, the structure could be moved and adapted to provide a home for a museum or sent to an emerging democracy, Duncan Swinhoe, Gensler’s regional managing principal, suggested.
Corbyn welcome Gensler’s proposal for floating Parliment
The world’s biggest architecture firm Gensler has drawn up plans to move the UK’s Lords and MPs into a bubble-like building on London’s River Thames.This modular structure provides a flexible and secure home to accommodate MPs, allowing all the urgent works to the historic building to proceed and could save British taxpayers more than £1.8bn.
Temporary Floating Parliment – Courtesy of Gensler
Temporary Floating Parliment on The Thames
According to a report from the UK’s parliament, the Palace of Westminster , is in urgent need of renovation and refurbishing, as the Houses of Parliament (as they’re more commonly known) were completed in 1870 and have wiring and ventilation systems scarcely touched since the middle of last century.The report also says, there is a “substantial and growing risk of either a single, catastrophic event, such as a major fire, or a succession of incremental failures in essential systems.”
Six Years Renovations of the Palace of Westminster
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been told that the proposals of the vital repair work to avoid this apocalyptic scenario at the Palace of Westminster, will be carried out in six to eight years, and During this period MPs will move to the nearby headquarters of the Department of Health at Richmond House while peers will move to the QE2 conference centre.
Temporary Floating Parliment – Courtesy of Gensler
Gensler’s concept
The floating building would be shaped like an elongated bubble, and separated into two areas internally – one for the House of Commons and one for the House of Lords. The design takes inspiration from the magnificent hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall,the roof of the Palace’s oldest building, which is the largest medieval timber roof in Europe and was commissioned in 1393 by Richard II.The concept overcomes some of the initial concerns about a river location by ensuring the structure does not interrupt the navigable channel along the centre of the river. It also incorporates a number of security measures that supplement the natural defense provided by the river itself.
Temporary Floating Parliment – Courtesy of Gensler
Gensler’s design
Gensler’s design accommodates all the principle components of the current Houses of Parliament within a new structure located alongside the existing Member’s terrace and assembled on the river 10 meters from the Palace of Westminster.Ian Mulcahey, managing director at Gensler, said finding a solution to the problem of housing MPs has been “complex”.
“The challenge has been to find a location that enables all the key components of Parliament to be located together in close proximity to the wider Government estate in Whitehall,” he explained.
The 250-metre-long structure would be built on a series of steel platforms and the building above would be a dramatic, high-tech, wooden-framed structure covering 8,600 square meters, which would provide all the necessary environmental and acoustic containment. “The structure would add a new iconic landmark to London and would not impact the protected vista of the Palace of Westminster from the summit of Parliament Hill,” said Gensler.
The new modular structure could be built in less than three years in shipyards across the UK and floated along the Thames to be secured and ready before the essential repairs of the Palace of Westminster which will start in 2020 and end in 2026.
