Brent Cross Town is an 180-acre new park town, delivering 6,700 homes, retail, offices for 25,000 workers, and 50 acres of green parks and playing fields.

How do you transform a utilitarian substation into a joyful, uplifting landmark? That was the challenge of the Brent Cross Town Substation and the opportunity presented by a site that an estimated six million people go past every year.

As one of the first structures delivered at Brent Cross Town and completed in 2023, the substation presented an opportunity to help define the identity of the development. Designed by architects IF_DO in collaboration with the artist Lakwena, the exuberant colour scheme and vast scale of the substation wrap ensures it has become a local landmark to inspire and instil pride in the local community.

The substation creates a powerful sense of motion as viewers move past it. The wrap comprises four undulating bands that expand and compress, and triangular-shaped ‘lenticular’ panels, with each outward-facing surface treated in a different colour. At 21-metres-high and 52-metres-long, it is one of the largest permanent public artworks in the country.

As well as being a piece of public art, the design was developed to operate as a hardworking, durable piece of infrastructure, and incorporates extensive technical requirements relating to the substation operations inside. The substation will supply electricity to the whole of Brent Cross Town, including 6,700 new homes, 3 million sq ft of offices and retail and leisure spaces. It will power the town’s district heating and cooling centre being created with Swedish energy company Vattenfall.

Fitting the net zero carbon town, the environmental impact of the substation structure has been minimised through circular economy principles and low-carbon concrete, with half of the structural steel reused from old oil pipelines.

Nick Searl, Executive Director at Related Argent, said: “This amazing piece of public art, designed in collaboration between artist Lakwena and architect IF_DO, is set to become a great landmark for London in this highly visible location. It sets the tone for the wider Brent Cross Town neighbourhood and demonstrates our commitment to art, culture and low carbon development. It would have been easy to take the more traditional route of enclosing the substation in a nondescript box and to miss the opportunity that is now so evident. Instead, we have demonstrated that even the most functional pieces of infrastructure can play an important role in defining place and lifting the spirits.”