Biota!
Encyclopedia
Biota! was a proposed aquarium
in the Silvertown Quays redevelopment, on the site of Millennium Mills
adjacent to the Royal Victoria Dock
, part of the wider Thames Gateway
regeneration project for East London. The £
80 million building by Terry Farrell
& Partners architects was given outline planning permission in March 2005 and was initially expected to be completed in 2008. Biota! would have formed one of the main public attractions of the 60 acre (0.2428116 km²), £1.5 billion development, along with Silvertown Venture Xtreme, an extreme sports and surf centre.
Biota! was to be operated by the Zoological Society of London
and would have been the world's first aquarium entirely based on the principles of conservation
. The design for the aquarium was based around four biome
s, each representing an entire ecosystem
including tree
s, other plant
s, invertebrate
s, amphibian
s, reptile
s, mammal
s and bird
s as well as fish
.
The planned completion date slipped as the Silvertown Quays development struggled to secure funding. In June 2008, Building
magazine announced that the aquarium was "under review because of the credit crunch", citing the global financial crisis as the reason for the lack of progress on the project. This placed the rest of the development in jeopardy because the planning obligations required the aquarium to be built before the rest of the scheme. In September 2009, the landowner London Development Agency
withdrew from the agreement, effectively ending the project.
Aquarium
An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...
in the Silvertown Quays redevelopment, on the site of Millennium Mills
Millennium Mills
The Millennium Mills is a derelict turn-of-the-century flour mill in West Silvertown on the south side of the Royal Victoria Dock, between the Thames Barrier and the ExCel exhibition centre alongside the newly built Britannia village, in Newham, London, England...
adjacent to the Royal Victoria Dock
Royal Victoria Dock
The Royal Victoria Dock is the largest of three docks in the Royal Docks of east London, now part of the redeveloped Docklands.-History:...
, part of the wider Thames Gateway
Thames Gateway
The Thames Gateway is an area of land stretching east from inner east London on both sides of the River Thames and the Thames Estuary. The area, which includes much brownfield land, has been designated a national priority for urban regeneration, taking advantage of the development opportunities...
regeneration project for East London. The £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
80 million building by Terry Farrell
Terry Farrell (architect)
Sir Terry Farrell, CBE, RIBA, FRSA, FCSD, MRTPI is a British architect.-Life and career:Farrell was born in Sale, Cheshire. As a youth he moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, where he attended St Cuthbert's High School. He graduated with a degree from Newcastle University, followed by a Masters in urban...
& Partners architects was given outline planning permission in March 2005 and was initially expected to be completed in 2008. Biota! would have formed one of the main public attractions of the 60 acre (0.2428116 km²), £1.5 billion development, along with Silvertown Venture Xtreme, an extreme sports and surf centre.
Biota! was to be operated by the Zoological Society of London
Zoological Society of London
The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...
and would have been the world's first aquarium entirely based on the principles of conservation
Conservation biology
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction...
. The design for the aquarium was based around four biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
s, each representing an entire ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
including tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s, other plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s, invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
s, amphibian
Amphibian
Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods...
s, reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s, mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s and bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s as well as fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
.
The planned completion date slipped as the Silvertown Quays development struggled to secure funding. In June 2008, Building
Building (magazine)
Building is one of the United Kingdom’s oldest business-to-business magazines, launched as The Builder in 1843 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom – architect of Birmingham Town Hall and designer of the Hansom Cab. The journal was renamed Building in 1966 as it is still known today. Building is the only UK...
magazine announced that the aquarium was "under review because of the credit crunch", citing the global financial crisis as the reason for the lack of progress on the project. This placed the rest of the development in jeopardy because the planning obligations required the aquarium to be built before the rest of the scheme. In September 2009, the landowner London Development Agency
London Development Agency
The London Development Agency is the Regional Development Agency for Greater London, England. It is a functional body of the Greater London Authority...
withdrew from the agreement, effectively ending the project.