Visiting One of the World's Most Sustainable Buildings in London - The Crystal

I was recently lucky enough to find myself with not only a weeks holiday but the opportunity to be a tourist for the day in London. Previously my life in Cornwall involved regular commutes up to London for my work and spending several trips per month flying up to London and back in a day simply for a few meetings but never really getting the opportunity to sight see.

Having used the Emirates Air Line from the O2 we travelled over the river Thames to arrive right next to The Crystal. A brand new exhibition that explores the future of our cities and how we will face the challenges of an ageing population, an increasing resistance to antibiotics and how renewable energy can become the future for sustainable energy.

As my partner works at an Eco friendly architects in Cornwall as a project manager he was keen to explore the exhibition and see if he could learn anything from the exhibition on the future of cities to take back to the countryside of Cornwall.

I've got to say on entering the building I did feel like a student again and was slightly unsure about learning and reading and taking so much information on board when I was on holiday but this is a brilliant exhibition. The whole building is interesting to look at and once inside your giving a key card to activate the exhibitions. The whole place is interactive from playing a Sim City like game to control an expanding city without going bankrupted to cycling to power the electrics in your home.

The building really does get you thinking and at times it could even leave you feeling rather depressed on the thoughts that the human race is destroying the planet but on the flip side it is amazing to see so much technology going into restoring and protecting our lifestyles and does make you consider what you can do in your home to reverse the negative effects and protect the planet for the future.

We spent several hours in the exhibition and could have spent even longer in there but with only one day to soak up as much of London as possible it was time to leave the exhibition, hop on a tube train and head deeper into the city. The next stop was going to be the business district of canary wharf. My partner used to work in one of canary wharfs tallest towers so was excited to get back into the hustle bustle of the city after living in Conrwall for so long.

You can read all about my visit to Canary Wharf in the next blog post here.