© GRAPHIC NEWS
© GRAPHIC NEWS
© GRAPHIC NEWS
UK
New U.S. Embassy
January 6, 2017 - A new U.S. Embassy designed by Philadelphia-based architects Kieran Timberlake is due to be dedicated by President Donald Trump in the Nine Elms area of London’s Wandsworth in early 2018.
Cleverly designed landscape defences protect the $1 billion, 12-storey glass cube from attack. To the north, an English yew hedge hides a line of concrete and steel bollards capable of stopping a truck driving head-on at over 40 miles per hour (65km/h).
A semi-circular pond, in effect a 100-foot (30.5-metre) moat, offers a further line of defence to the building which stands on a raised plinth, its defensive wall disguised by a waterfall.
A wall of seating fixed to thick slabs of truck-proof concrete offers defence from the south, behind which the landscape rises in a military-style embankment with sharp changes of level -- an obstacle to hostile vehicles but easily crossed by Marines.
A thin sheath of photo-voltaic cells which can generate more than 345,000kWh of energy cover the chancery building, making it self-sufficient if under attack. Its facade is covered with six inch-thick (15cm) bomb-proof glazing.