The KieranTimberlake building, which will cost $500 million to construct, will fill a roughly five-acre site along the southern edge of the Thames, in a district called the Nine Elms opportunity area, and replace Eero Saarinen's 1960 embassy in Grosvenor Square.
The all-glass office block is a welcome contrast to the defensive crouch of most American embassies, though it looks as if it is covered in high-tech tufted upholstery.
The pliable plastic material, called ETFE, will stretch tent-like over rods projecting from the outside walls. It will form insulating pillows that taper into vertical and horizontal fins. Tuned to optimal sun angles, the fins will harvest daylight when useful and shade when needed.
Photovoltaic film will be laminated onto the ETFE to collect solar energy when sun makes a rare appearance.
It is also highly responsible from an environmental point of view. "We wanted to create a building that would be an environment for diplomacy, but also serve as diplomacy for the environment," Timberlake explained.
The project will break ground in 2013 and be completed in 2017.
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