The March issue of Icon magazine has nominated Battersea Power Station as its ‘icon of the month’. It is described as: ‘Solitary, decaying and useless, a favourite derelict building standing proud and aloof amid legal wrangling, property speculation and the soulless transformation of it surrounding.’ At the moment the building is back on the market, so perhaps now is a good time to think of some creative uses on behalf of potential purchasers…

To get us started, Icon’s team have suggested ideas including experimental settlements, giant cinemas, restaurants and galleries and a tomb to Thatcher. Actual proposals have been put forward including a theme park, an urban park, and a hotel, retail and housing development. And it has already been used as a site for political and commercial launch events, the circus, snow parks, air races, locations for films and TV – and of course, there was that pig…

I have conducted my own poll for ideas and here are a few:

A self-sustaining multi-level sports centre with heat and energy supplied by gravity-fed thermal generators. The main feature would be a massive indoor and outdoor lido at roof level with jacuzzis at the top of each chimney. Imagine the evocative mists and steams wafting and drifting above the building.

Transfer Brian Aldridge’s intensive dairy farm from Ambridge to this site. The numbers could be increased to several thousand cows – all penned in at multiple levels. The methane from the herd could be trapped and added to the bio gas produced from a slurry-fuelled anaerobic digester, thereby making the site self-sufficient.  Any milk that the capital could not use would be sent down the Thames for export.

A tropical forest and biodiversity research centre. The building and environs would be transformed into an academic centre of biological excellence. Its purpose to study, grow, and protect essential fauna and flora species. the building would be reduced to a structural skeleton and infilled with glass. The forest canopy can be visited using elevated walkways.

Other ideas included a landing site for extraterrestrial visitors, a launch site for extraterrestrial probes. My favourite – a giant hill constructed inside on which to walk about and view the night sky. The chimneys seem to point the imagination skywards… perhaps they could also be used as tether masts for an airship station?

If you have visited the Kennedy Space Centre or the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, you will know that being inside very big and tall buildings is an inspiring and physically unsettling experience. This tendency to quake in awe inside such a void is perhaps a result of an agoraphobic bewitchment caused by a space so enormous that is beyond our comprehension. These metaphysical characteristics could easily be captured for say, a spiritual centre for world religions, a global cathedral for all people of the world. Or  perhaps a colossal planetarium where the likes of Prof. Brian Cox could describe the wonders of the universe in a space so vast that it could easily accommodate his representations of billions and billions of stars and galaxies.

Icon believe, and I tend to share the view, that there is much merit in doing nothing. It is a classic ‘terrain vague’ as described by the Spanish architect Ignasi Sola-Morales Rubio. Ignasi would, no doubt, like to see this urban area manifest itself as a space of freedom that is an alternative to the lucrative reality prevailing in a capitalist city.

Ahh, commercial reality, though it spoils our creative fun, it cannot be avoided. Of course the best public use would be for the area to be shared as affordable housing; or a park – such as Terry Farrell has recently proposed – or like New York’s High Line Park on disused railway lines; or or as an alternative energy centre, which would restore an industrial relevance to the heritage site. Shamefully, none of these proposals would be considered as a viable public venture. It is a sad situation that the costs necessary for the restoration and infrastructure will inevitably need to be offset, as Icons says, ‘by the money-spinning ballast of yuppiedromes and shopping malls’. And yet developers are in no hurry to find a solution as the building will always end up generating money – even when left in derelict stasis.

If this deadlock continues the building will eventually disintegrate. Perhaps then, there would be a justification for demolition. And though we would miss its skyline presence, there could be redemption in the form of an Ai Weiwei inspired sell-off of 100 million individual bricks prepared as authentic and unique Grade ll Listed Battersea Power Paperweights.

All other ideas welcome!