King's Cross, Urban Pioneers

Adam Khan, the architect behind the imminently-to-be-completed New Horizons Youth Centre in Somers Town, gave the Urban Pioneers a guided tour of his project on 18 February.

On 18 February, The Urban Pioneers visited BDP's offices in Clerkenwell where they were given a tour of the building and learnt how the practice uses Computer Aided Design.

We're just about halfway through the King's X urban pioneers project I think, and it has been a busy couple of days. But the past three days have been very engaging, we have found out alot about the area and for someone who lives local like myself, it has been very interesting as I didn't know how much history my area had, it makes me see the area in a completely new light, and I'm sure the group feel the same.

From the top, on Friday 12 Feb, we meet a rather chipper Alastair Lansley, the cheif architect who completely redesigned St Pancras international station. For a man in his position, he was surprising an approachable and friendly chap. And for 13 years of dedicating his life to this project, it was impressive to see because he was still enthusiastic about the project as one could see his eyes light up as he was going through his presentation. And the dynamic between Alastair and Ian Gardner, the cheif engineers, added a new light to the project as they went from talking about the great glass roof to cutting the hole for the promenade under the tracks to the pillars and to the cost of each handmade brick (£14.50), which was very thought provoking. Then Alastair toured us around the station he designed and he showed us the importance of the small details, from the way that the advertising board blend into the walls to the way the metallic structure meets with the old red bricks was fascinating.

On Monday 15, the plan was to go Lille for the day but of course the tradegy of the train crash put an abrupt halt to the proceedings, which made the day a whole lot stressfull and challenging. But looking to the good points of the day, the company made the time go by quicker and the fiasco with Kofi's great time management made me laugh, but i think Ruby would strongly disagree. Also, meeting Tom Dyckhoff, a writer for The Times, put our minds off the cancallations as we could fire questions at him as he's a friendly and funny guy. And we got advice about career plans, the real down-to-earth talk about further education and career plan, it was refreshing to hear stuff we could use through our lives. So all in all, yes the trains were cancelled and no trip to Lille but I was with good company, met Tom and we're going sometime in March. So a bitter-sweet day with more sweet than bitter.  

And finally, today Wednesday 17, we first met Richard Knight, the the head of local history at the Holborn Library, gave us a presentation about the King's X voices presentation. Which comprises of the recording of local people in that area describing what it was like to live in King's X when it was a red-light district, during the war, growing up, during the regeneration and other similar topics. But I didn't think recordings of local people wouldn't be enough to grab the attention of 16-18 year olds but I was glad to be wrong as they were fascinating and engaging to listen to, and some great characters and stories emerged which painted a wonderful picture of King's X, and the people really made it great to listen to. And the stuff that Richard was saying like the Tonbridge boys club and popularity the boys ballet club there was very interesting and surprised me as I didn't know this was happening long ago. Next we met Alan Dein, who is a BBC radio 4 broadcaster and is the oral historian for the King's X vocies project, he worked in this project and around King's X for 4/5 years so he knew alot about the area. And his job as a freelance broadcaster, which meant meeting lots of different people, recording sounds and atomspheres, and building up knowledge about an area was fascinating for me and he looked like he really loved his job. But the highlight of the day was meeting all those different characters, it was quite refreshing and I wish I could remember all the names of those we interviewed but we got great material and made that day quite special. And I did get interviewed myself which was daunting to have the group ask me questions and to be put on the spot like that but it was great to visit those memerios again of my childhood that I haven't looked back on for years, I hope it comes out all right. 

So that's it so far, thanks to Ruby for organizing all of this so far and I'm looking forward to the next couple of days.

Antony

On 17 February, the Urban Pioneers met broadcaster Alan Dein to hear about the Kings Cross Voices archive, and took a tour from the south to the north of Kings Cross, collecting interviews at the historic Boot pub, One KX, Coram's Fields, St Pancras Station and Somers Town. Their radio programme will be available to listen to shortly.

Friday was very exciting - meeting the 'guy' who spent years of planning and developing Kings Cross Station. Alastair Lansley with the accompany of Ian Gardner, an ARUP Engineer, presented a 'short' presentation about the Kings Cross station. His passion and enthusiasm seeping through every spoken word, made me enthusiastic about the subject too, as well as his kind and humorous personality being made evident as the presentation went along. Knowing the history of the Kings Cross area was imperitive to me, because in comparison to other stations that were mentioned, such as Waterloo, Paddington and Euston, Kings Cross is the most vast and extraordinary Station in its volume.  Kings Cross, back in the 1860's, was a developing area, most known for Trade, so the Station had to be spacious, to make way for the goods being imported and also distribute them all over the country in the fastest most efficient way possible and so having to constantly decide on consolidating on certain features to keep the old and to incorporate the new, was shown to be very hard, but having its history and that knowledge in mind Alastair said, "In order to mix the two, you have to seperate them, and that's what we did...". Another thing that was interesting to know, was that everything that is built is Grade Listed, and so Kings Cross Station is Grade 1 Listed, which means nothing can change it, and it cannot be knocked-down without top authorisation. Sadly, my favourite station , Waterloo, is only Grade 2 listed *sniff sniff - tear* - Although Alastair did say it could have been Grade 1 listed *wink & a smile*. After hearing about 'how the roof of the building is like no other...' he gave us a personal tour, so we could see everything for ourselves, and the one thing that i especially noticed was that, eventhough the Station in huge and can be overwhelming, Alastair knew everything about it and was able to tell us all he could. I think this was essential to the project in understanding Architecture and Stations, it was fun to be around him and to know what he does.

The project has been going great so far. In the first session we met some very professional people including Pandas-loving-amazingly-awesome people [at Camley Street Natural Park]. Each one of us can learn something from them. Their determination and passion to take their idea forwards is inspiring and breathtaking at the same time. Shame we didn’t get to cook some pizzas in their nice stove.  The People’s of “King’s Cross Urban Pioneers” minds remained focused even when everyone was getting soaked in typical lovely British weather which kept us all going, and guess what, it was raining the next two sessions as well.

Our second session involved meeting the people behind St. Pancras station. The super-charged brains were Alastair Lansley (the architect) and Arup's Ian Gardner (the engineer). Alastair generously dedicated few hours of his time to enlighten us on the processes of building one of the world’s most extraordinary stations (yes, we will buy your book Alastair – promise). Alastair made an interesting comment after telling about working with Sir Norman Foster: “I became so Fostered, I nearly got adopted”. He also quotes further one of the greatest contemporary architects: “I don’t want reflections or shadows”.  Alistair admitted that most of modern civil sector buildings are based on this principal. St. Pancras was no exception. It’s a shame Gardner had only small amount of time available for us, although what he said in that short space of time settled in each one of us for countless years to come...or at least until Uni. Again, both of these men showed inspiring enthusiasm and professionalism. I suppose that is what’s going to have to keep us going in the studies ahead?

A crowd of tired early-morning faces greeted everyone in St. Pancras. Just on time to catch the Eurostar, oh wait, where’s Kofi? 1 hour 6 minutes, 2 assaults through customs and 1 cup of coffee later Kofi did manage to join us in the queue to board the train. But then, a great tragedy. Collision between two trains in Belgium on the Brussels branch led to all Eurostar to Brussels being cancelled. 16,250 times of begging Ruby to go to Paris later, we were forced to postpone the trip to another date. We did manage to meet and have a very interesting and rather friendly talk with Tom Dyckhoff, but more on that when we actually get to Lille next month.

Friday was great; it was my first time meeting everyone at the German Gymnasium. I had a chance to look around and observe models of building yet to be finished in the area, which really helped to give you a feel for the atmosphere of Kings Cross. We had a chance to learn about the processes of redeveloping the area before meeting Alastair Lansley, the head Architect behind the redevelopment of St. Pancras and Ian Gardner the Engineer.

 
Alastair was the first to present to the Urban Pioneers and I just loved his enthusiasm for the railway system. It was contagious. He really captured the groups’ attention and I think everyone was interested in everything he had to say. We learn about his career and more specifically his involvement in St. Pancras. How it was built 6 meters above street level and how it was the first station to use a stylised lighting system. Ian gave us an insight into the building’s complex structure, where he told us of their struggle convincing English Heritage to support their idea to remove the St. Pancras’s ceiling panels and replacing it with glass. They also gave use an insight into the stations multiple uses, as The Undercroft was originally used to house Burton’s beer, now the retail area replaces it. We learnt so much and had the opportunity to throw questions to these experts, having them answered with honest and great humour.

Monday 15^th February   

There has been a lot of speculation around what actually happened and still this story continues to baffle the minds of professionals. People have named the phenomenon …The Day we waited for Kofi. Forget about that fact we never actually got to Lille and that we queued and queued only to find out that we wouldn’t go anywhere. The main event of the day was waiting for Kofi. The meeting point was St. Pancras station, 7:30am with Ruby and Tom Dyckhoff. Coincidentally, Naomi and I meet on the tube and was then evacuated away from Kings Cross due to a suspected fire, then proceeded to make our way back to the danger zone where it was then given the all clear. In hindsight, it seems like this day was not meant to happen, but anyway. Ruby then did a call around to check the location of all the other Pioneers and apparently, everyone was almost there. Seen, as we had to spare Tom, I thought it was necessary to start our day right so headed to a notorious chain store beginning with S to get our fix of coffee. When we rejoined the group Antony, Benas and Michael had arrived but no sign of Kofi. Ruby was assured that he was 10 minutes away and so we waited. Sometime later, Ruby called Kofi and was told that he would not be much longer, well we waited… waited and-d waited. Finally, we decided to give Kofi a 10 minute ultimatum or else we would definitely miss the train. We had to rush past check-in and customs, with some pretty evasive security guards. Everyone, besides me was reluctant to leave without Kofi being there, to be fair I was stern as he lives reasonably close but Michael being the loyal friend that he is risked his trip to Lille to go back for Kofi. Eventually, the search and rescue was called off when 1hr and 6minutes later Kofi arrived and as fresh faced as ever, whilst I was still getting over my very earlier start. Why he was late was is a mystery within itself! I have heard three different stories, depending on whom you talk to. All I know was that he woke up 5:30 and got dressed. Went back to sleep. Went to Mc Donald’s and had a meal. Got on a bus going the wrong way, was lost, and then finally made it to the station. If anything, it was hilarious day and I look forward to Lille trip II.

On Friday 12 February, the Urban Pioneers met Alastair Lansley, the architect in charge of the regeneration of St Pancras Station, and Arup's Ian Gardner.

Only a week to go until our trip to Lille...