St Pancras Campus.

This new, mixed-use development transforms an entire urban block between the King's Cross and Camden Town areas of central London. It's on a historically industrial site, and now forms part of the city's emerging Knowledge Quarter,

Location

London, United Kingdom

Client

W.RE

Architect

Caruso St John

Project Value

confidential

Status

in design

Expertise

Façade Infrastructure Structures

The design is led by architect Caruso St John, for developer W.RE. The scheme introduces a seven-storey office building, a six-storey market-residential building and a five-storey affordable-housing building, together with a new, landscaped pedestrian realm. Light-industrial spaces are also provided throughout the ground and basement levels, to continue the site’s industrial provision for the local borough. Public retail and cafè spaces are also incorporated.

Architecturally, the design reflects the site’s history of industrial use. The commerical building steps back through its upper levels to integrate with the local low-and mid-rise context, while the two residential buildings incorporate transfer slabs within the first floor level, to provide the change in grid. Within the office building, the steel structural frame forms part of the interior architecture; all of the beams, columns, connections and MEP services are detailed accordingly.

It’s all being delivered on a constrained brownfield site. AKT II’s in-house geotechnical team has provided the ground-movement assessment to de-risk the project during the early design stages, and we’ve ultimately developed all of the construction solutions together with the contractor BAM. A new, single-storey basement is introduced.

AKT II’s envelopes team has developed the facades together with the architect. The concept responds to the surrounding area’s classicality and horizontality with a strong repetitive arrangement of brick and pale masonry, together with large windows. Across all three buildings, the structure is expressed through the envelope with white, pre-cast-concrete ‘pilaster’ columns, complete with projecting capitals at each floor level. The adjacent sandstone panels are made with a uniform, fine-grained natural stone.