The first photos of the world’s most expensive moat ever to be built, which it’s hoped will make the new US Embassy in London impenetrable to terrorists, have been released.
The 100 foot, half-moon strip of water in front of the building is meant to be able to withstand any type of attack although US officials have euphemistically called it a ‘water feature’.
The embassy, being built in the Nine Elms area of London, is already the world’s costliest embassy.
Costs have spiraled upwards of $1 billion.
After the project was announced in 2008, critics have slammed the record construction costs, wavy glass cube design and moat entrance, while nearby residents expressed fears that their homes would become inadvertent terrorist targets.
However, since the current US Embassy, in Grosvenor Square, is too small and too old-fashioned as it was built in the 1950s, and fraught with security issues for the modern world, plans have been made for the novel construction.
The new high-tech Embassy will have a bomb-proof exterior and anti-ram barriers which are just being built judging from our pictures - but its designer Kieran Timberlake didn’t want to put in the usual security measures such as high security walls and a defensive perimeter.
Moreover, the Embassy is not the only development in the area, the immediate vicinity is being built into a project called 'Embassy Gardens'.
Almost 2,000 new homes as well as a number of shops, restaurants and businesses, a 100-room hotel, health club, playgrounds and sport fields will be built according to Wandsworth Council, who approved the project.
Source- Mailonline