Stirling Prize 2024 shortlist: King's Cross Masterplan, Camden, by Allies and Morrison and Porphyrios Associates

Although still being completed, the new King’s Cross feels as if it’s always been there –  testament to this masterplan as a piece of city-making. From its conception over 20 years ago, architects Allies and Morrison and Porphyrios Associates set out principles for a ‘human city’ with variety, character and a sense of identity to underpin changing patterns of social and economic behaviour. Critical moves come via careful reshaping of existing buildings and found geometries, stitching a formerly cut-off part of the city into the wider urban fabric. New buildings fill the quarter, framing and augmenting the open spaces and routes that are the project’s true legacy.

Two main routes lead north from King’s Cross Square on Euston Rd, crossing Regent’s Canal, to link with the new Granary Square. In front of Cubitt’s Granary Building, now Central Saint Martins art school, this has become a lively and much-loved public space. Beyond it, 20 new streets and lanes, 10 parks, five squares and buildings by 30 architects are set around 20 refurbished historic buildings and structures. There are two primary schools, more than 1,700 new homes, over 4million ft² of office space, an art gallery, Islamic centre, cinema, shops, restaurants and bars as well as the art college. More than 40% of its 27ha is open space, with over 600 plant species and 400 trees. Taken together, the King's Cross masterplan is a striking exemplar of placemaking.

What were the main architectural priorities for you as master planners?

Graham Morrison Three things: first, it was about the space between buildings rather than buildings themselves. Secondly internal connections between these spaces and thirdly creating a part of the city that is of itself and part of London.

Demetri Porphyrios Most important was to make a part of the city that looks similar to what exists – that is new but part of a continuum and has a sense of place; a human city that is connected to the people that live in it.

Bob Allies We also wanted to maximise the existing potential: historical  stations and buildings, canal and site topography – in the hope that in doing so, you create a unique new place whose attributes are all inherited from its context.

How did project circumstances influence the design?

GM King’s Cross has much history and variety and we wanted to make the most of that, even problematic aspects such as HS1 tracks to the west that acted like a medieval city wall. Also, the site was in the protected view corridor of Primrose Hill/Parliament Hill to St Paul’s, which precluded tall buildings. Those constraints probably made the scale more human.

BA Time worked in our favour. It took several years of thought and work to create the masterplan, which made a final version with inherent flexibility, where quantum of uses for plots were maxima and minima and could vary over time. It took effort to convince planners that a loose-fit approach could have positive outcomes, despite the clearly dynamic factors affecting it.

DP We started with the existing; not the site’s dilapidated buildings, but London itself and its physical qualities and characteristics. We applied principles about how precisely this city operates, creating a framework to establish the nature of the new bit we were creating – its streets, squares, parks and promenades – not in abstract but what London uniquely has. If we applied those principles elsewhere, the result would be totally different.

What else had a significant influence on your design approach?

DP ‘Place’ is a sensibility that allows people to associate with it through imagery, ideas or a memory; something that they know – Aristotle’s concept of understanding via recognition. You know this new city quarter is in London, not because it’s a copy of what already exists but because it embodies memories of its scale and visual aspects.

GM Even though Demetri is classical architect and we’re modernists, we share  ideas about the nature of the city. We too have an interest in the picturesque, not just as Camillo Sitte imagined it but Gordon Cullen as well. Their ideas helped inform the sense of place here.

How was the design developed?

GM One key aspect of the masterplan was that there were no design codes. We wrote a series of ‘parameter plans’ for about a dozen spaces, describing what kind of place we wanted it to be and how that outcome might be achieved. Argent appointed more than 30 architects who all understood the parameter plans and gave them freedom to design what they wanted while respecting the context and adjacency of designs on other plots.

BA Every plot had guidelines explaining the obligations of each building in our placemaking strategy. The Chipperfield building facing King’s Cross Station’s new west entrance, for instance, was described as a long building with a thin but important end gable that had to be perceived as a ‘front’; so he created his dramatic iron-columned loggia to the square. Everyone did their bit to support the character of each of their areas. It’s a menagerie – but a managed one!

Who were your most important was collaborators, and how did that work?

BA Argent was deeply involved and we had meetings every week initially; its buy-in and engagement were crucial. We really have to credit them with the imagination to bring in so many different users. Yes, there’s housing for sale and rent but also student housing, the Aga Khan Centre, primary schools, cinema and theatre. They were instinctive in recognising that the more things going on here, the more successful it would be.

What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

BA The railway lines to the north and west remain a barrier so the impact of the masterplan will take a bit of time to filter through, although if you walk around the surrounding areas, they are being enlivened. York Way used to be a horrible road but it’s starting to thaw as a result of the masterplan working. And you can now walk from Somerstown through to Islington, which was impossible before. People from these formerly geographically disconnected communities can meet again.

DP Gaining planning permission was arduous and the projects’ finance model helped keep the project on track in the financial downturn. Had the plan been based on a Renaissance ideal with strong geometry, it would have suffered with the financial challenges – looking broken and unfinished if not completed. The great thing here was that masterplan was organic and flexible and based on phased completion before any new one started. It could deal with financial vagaries.

GM One thing you can’t control, as Demetri outlined, is that the more attractive a place you make it, the more land values go up and the more exclusive it becomes. It’s a cultural conundrum. Everyone wants it to be successful, but it’s more expensive for those that buy into it later. I don’t know what the answer is to that. One strategy might be more government subsidy and social control – but that might have a diminishing effect on the quality you get in the first place. 

Is there an element of the project that has been particularly successful?

GM Yes – making a masterplan people seem to want to linger in rather than move on. It’s not an ‘event’ – a cathedral, museum or theatre. It feels like place to dwell. The normality and ‘in-betweeness’ of that leaves me with a good feeling.

BA The distance between buildings is unusual in masterplanning nowadays – the trend is to keep buildings apart. But here they’re quite close together, almost too close – creating an intimacy that lends a particular atmosphere, especially when contrasted to bigger spaces like Granary Square. This multiplicity of spatial experience generates potential we weren’t aware of when we designed it.

DP I see it as a totality and that no space is better than the other. You love all your children the same!

See all six projects shortlisted for the 2024 RIBA Stirling Prize

The 2024 Stirling Prize is sponsored by Autodesk