Houseboats and grass covered stairs: King's Cross Development visit with MA students



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It is already clear when exiting the tube station that King's Cross is an up-and-coming neighbourhood. The market vendors have set up quite early and it’s not even the weekend. The areas surrounding the station are still not busy at 10.30 in the morning, but come lunchtime the place really fills up.

Turning north and moving towards Granary Square we find the grass covered stairs leading down to the riverfront, where they function as an amphitheatre facing the houseboats on the other side. For me, as a Norwegian student, the idea of grass covered steps is as foreign as houseboats on the river. It’s like the British wall to wall carpet taken to the extreme, but I have to admit it is extremely inviting. As we see on our way back, a couple of hours later, it is lunch time and carpeted stairs are filled with families (term holiday) and workers already!

After a brief introduction to the site and a look at the model we head towards the centre of the new development. We are originally interested in seeing the pool, which we are told is having its last day as a temporary instalment. The chilly wind on top of the viewing platform quickly draws us down however, and into the ‘Ship Garden’ directly below. This is a nice contrast to some of the more polished development, and we spend a good half an hour investigating all its nooks and crannies. Especially we have to admire the greenhouse constructed from windows and the actual skips converted to parcels. I have seen similar allotment gardens previously, but not as part of a new development in the same way. When we leave I find myself hoping that this place will remain in some form after the surrounding area has been transformed from the building site it is now.

Our last stop is the Gasholder Park. This is the now famous transformation of the previous gas holder tanks. In one of these old gasholders a small park has been constructed between the old beams. The shiny steal contrast against the lush grass of the lawn, where a curved mound function as a backrest making this a perfect stop for our lunch break. This focus on ‘loud’ materials is a bit of a difference to the more toned down, minimalist, elements found in Scandinavian landscape design. Here the outdoor structures have been allowed to make a distinct statement from the surrounding building architecture.

Thyra Frederikke Grimstad, MA Landscape Architecture student at WUC