From wasteland to wetland

David Pearson

"An astonishing and miraculous opportunity to bring wildlife and wildbirds into the centre of our great city, that must be the envy of Europe." This is how Sir David Attenborough praised the new Wetland Centre, London at its opening at the end of May. And, indeed, it is a miracle. Instead of this huge area being sold off to become more run-of-the mill urban re-development, the four disused Victorian reservoirs, have been transformed by The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) into over 100 acres of wetland habitat open to the public right in the heart of London. It is now home to a wealth of wildlife – in particular wildbirds.

Following in the tradition of WWT's founder Sir Peter Scott, and their first site opened in 1946 at Slimbridge on the River Severn, there are now nine WWT centres in Britain. Slimbridge has just undergone a major development with the opening of its new Visitor Centre designed by ECD Architects, London.



London Centre

But the new London centre is WWT's most ambitious project to date. The Wetland Centre, London grew from a partnership between WWT, Thames Water plc, who own the land, and Berkeley Homes who, with Thames Water, provided initial enabling funding via development of part of the north of the site as private housing.This provided the trust with £11 million initial funding for basic landscaping, lakes, ponds,
reedbeds, marshes, sluices, broadwalks, pathways and building shells. An additional £5 million has been raised by WWT through corporate funding and grant-making bodies for 'fit out' and interpretation exhibits. Detailed design work began in 1992 and has brought together the expertise of hydrological and civil engineers, soil scientists, landscape architects and architects. As well as a state of the art visitor centre, there are two main open-air exhibition areas, World Wetlands – a tour around international wetlands, and Waterlife - Britain's unique wetland heritage. Now, 30,000 trees, 300,000 aquatic plants and wild flowers, 130 wild birds species, 24 butterflies, 260 moths, 18 dragon and damselflies, and four species of amphibians inhabit the centre – not bad for somewhere only four miles from Westminster!


"The Wetland Centre is the real Millennium Dome, only upside down and filled with water." Prof. David Bellamy





Sustainable designs

My involvement started in 1996 when I had a phone call from Doug Hulyer, Director of Conservation Programmes and Development at WWT. He had a copy of my book Earth to Spirit: In Search of Natural Architecture and wanted, he said, " Some really imaginative buildings at the new centre just like the ones in your book. Can we talk about it?". A number of architects had been invited to make presentations for proposed exhibit buildings. These were John Thompson & Ptns (architects of the WWT London visitor centre), Cole Thompson Associates (designers of the BRE Integer House) and David Newman (Aquarium Design and Development). Several meetings later, my part was to design three structures destined for the Waterlife area.These were Pond Zone (a pond–dipping and interactive exhibit for children), Wetland Living (traditional and modern wetland crafts) and Marsh Arab House (a traditional mudhif or guest house of the Ma'dan (marsh arabs) of Iraq) - endangered via the continuing erosion of their culture. And, with David Newman, concept and organic designs for Thames Riverlife (a major exhibit about the River Thames and its riverlife habitats from source to sea). To date, Pond Zone and Wetland Secrets are complete with Marsh Arab House coming soon. The credit for this exciting and timely project must go to the talented and committed project team for these projects (see below) that WWT put together. It has been a real pleasure to work with them and to be part of a truly magnificent achievement.

So, visit The Wetland Centre soon and see for yourself.

Pond Zone - a pond-dipping experience for children. The inside houses a dramatic interpretive 'pondscape' exhibit that takes the young visitor under the surface of an imaginary pond. Huge lily pads, brightly coloured models of microscopic pond life, water beetles, water snails, fish and frogs are suspended overhead and make the visitor seem to shrink in size, like Alice in Wonderland. Samples of pondlife can be brought inside and examined via a microscope with wall-mounted monitor.
The 8m high, 6.5m radius building, skilfully built by specialist timber framers T.J.Crump (Oakwrights), uses traditional methods and materials to a design inspired by a Neolithic roundhouse. The massive centre pole and smaller intermediate wall supports are poplar tree trunks while the semi-circular infill wall is lime-rendered straw bales. The branching roof structure is of Douglas Fir, using traditional pegged joints, with reed-thatch covering.

Wetland Living - an exhibit of traditional and modern wetland crafts. Built of green oak, this 40sq.m traditional timber frame structure and reed thatch roof was inspired by a Hampshire medieval cruck-frame barn. Seen from the pond in front, it has an uncanny appearance of always having been there!

Marsh Arab House – a traditional Marsh Arab guest house to be constructed on a floating pontoon on one of the ponds. It would be best to have this built by Marsh Arabs themselves but, with the political situation in Iraq, this may be impossible. Instead an English thatcher will have to take up the challenge!

Thames Riverlife – a future major exhibit about the River Thames. Designed by Gaia Environments, in association with David Newman, an impressive 30m earth-sheltered, grass-covered dome and Sedum-covered semi-circular walkway will take visitors around indoor aquaria, outdoor ponds and exhibits representing source spring, upper and lower rivers, estuary and sea. This future project, currently planned for 2004, has planning approval and now needs funding – around £2 to 3 million, depending on final size, facilities and exhibition fit-out. (CAD image by Adrian Senior, Anigraph)

More information:

The Wetland Centre, Queen Elizabeth's Walk, Barnes, London SW13 9WT

Tel: 020 8409 4400. E-mail: [email protected]

Web site: www.wetlandcentre.org.uk or see: www.wwt.org.uk

Project Team

Clients: WWT

Doug Hulyer, Kevin Peberdy, Helen Shackelton, Lloyd Turner

Architect: David Pearson. Gaia Environments Ltd.

Contractor:T.J.Crump (Oakwrights) Ltd, Hereford

Mike Bristow, Nick Price, Bob Bick

Master Thatcher: John Warner, Brandon Thatchers

Landscape architects: Nick Adams, Adams Habermehl Design Partnership

Quantity Surveyors and Project Management: Davis Langdon & Everest

Alan Trolley and Adam Trigg

Article first published in "EcoDesign" Vol VIII No2 Summer/Autumn 2000