New US London Embassy Will Have a Moat

(Feb. 25) -- The U.S. has gone modern and medieval at the same time with its design for a new $1 billion embassy in London. Its new home, which will look like a glass cube sitting on stilts, will include a semicircular moat and bomb-resistant glazing, all in the name of security.

The move from the fancy Mayfair district to the less-glamorous Battersea area on the south bank of the River Thames was prompted by a number of factors, said the U.S. ambassador, Louis Susman.

The present Grosvenor Square building "has become overcrowded, does not meet modern office needs and required security standards --and, after 50 years, is showing signs of wear and tear," he said in a statement.

Artists' rendering of planned US Embassy in London

U.S. Dept. of State / AFP / Getty Images

This is an artist's rendering of the design for the new U.S. Embassy in London. The $1 billion facility will be built on a former industrial site and is to be completed by 2017.

What he didn't mention was the angry opposition by fellow high-end Grosvenor Square residents to new security measures, including bomb-blast barriers, deemed necessary after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

In 2006, more than 100 residents took out a double-page ad in The Times of London opposing tighter security measures that they said would leave the area, a collection of mainly Georgian-style houses surrounding a park, more vulnerable to attack.

Plans for the new 12-story embassy, on an 11-acre former industrial site near the highly visible but disused Battersea power station, call for work to start in 2013 and to be completed by 2017.

"It meets and exceeds all the security requirements," said U.S. architect James Timberlake, whose Philadelphia-based firm, KieranTimberlake, won the contract to design the building. "We are using elements of landscaping that have been around for centuries and centuries.

"But it's not a fortress," he added. "We are able to use the landscape as a security device. There's no wall and no fences."

There is a lake 100 feet wide and a rolling earth bank that will separate the building from the main road and protect it from would-be bombers. The building will be able to house 1,000 people.

The new embassy is designed to be almost self-sufficient in energy, thanks in part to puffy-looking plastic panels attached to the facade. They will hold photovoltaic cells that can convert sunlight into energy and will also act as sunscreens to prevent overheating.

The Grosvenor Square building will get a new life as a luxury hotel, the London Times reported. A company from Qatar paid more than $1 billion for it.