Great Northern Hotel - Kings Cross, UK

As part of the Kings Cross regeneration project developers are proposing a 90-room boutique hotel located adjacent to both Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations. Developers commissioned a feasibility study for the hotel which was then compared to a similar study for serviced office use. Longer term returns from hotel use have swayed the developers’ decision to pursue this route. Hotel management structures are currently being considered.

http://www.kingsturge.co.uk/commercial/news/great-northern-hotel-kings-cross.htm

Duty of care "Kings Cross Development"

The King’s Cross programme is one of the most significant development and regeneration opportunities in Central London.

Proposals for the new site include 1,900 new homes, hotels, retail, student accommodations, offices, sports and leisure facilities, open spaces, cultural uses, the refurbishment of historic structures and buildings. This project will regenerate the area and will also provide tourism, commerce, better travel connection and employment opportunities beneficial for local residence.

The King's Cross masterplan has been prepared by Allies and Morrison and Porphyrios Associates, with landscaping by Townshend Landscape Architects.
It is being developed as a joint venture between three companies:

- Argent (King's Cross) Limited
- London & Continental Railways Limited (LCR)
- DHL - Exel Supply Chain (DHL-Exel)

Argent and landowners London & Continental Railways and DHL-Exel have chosen BIW Technologies (BIW) to provide its construction collaboration and process management software to support the development at King's Cross in central London.

Also it involves planning authorities such as: planning lawyers, legal associates, private and public sector planners, surveyors advising on planning issues and elected members. Also CDM (Construction design and management regulations), Building control, Camden's Development Control, Architects, Engineers, Builders Local communities, contractors and others.

Duty of care

Duty of care

It means duty to exercise utmost skill, care and diligence. We offer professional advice and services, and implicitly undertake that we are possessed of the knowledge and skill for the purpose. We bring to the task our experience with knowledge and skills.


Our aim:

Plan of work

Relationship with clients

Involvement and liaising with authorities includes:

-The planning authorities
-Building control
-CDM (Construction design and management regulations)
-CDM construction risks
-CDM health and safety

Studio Miessen

Studio Miessen is a collaborative agency for spatial strategy and cultural analysis, accommodating change through research, criticism, writing, teaching and design. As motors and productive elements of change, these means build the fundamental basis for alternative policies in urban centres. Studio Miessen design space, services and strategic framework proposals, research and write on spatial practices and comment on a wide range of cultural phenomena through international publishing, architectural proposals and the vigorous production of ideas.

Unique solutions are being delivered through a network of high-profile international practitioners with expertise in architecture, urbanism, contemporary art, curatorial practice, literature, cultural studies and social sciences. Collaborating with institutions, NGOs, local government, and independent practitioners, project teams are assembled on an ad hoc basis delivering a polyphonic team of experts in regards to the issues presented by our clients.

The Studio is currently working on projects in Brazil, the US, Europe, and the Middle East, for clients and collaborators such as the European Union’s Institute for Culture, the Government of Slovenia, the European Kunsthalle, the Architectural Association, and several individuals and institutions of various scales.

from http://www.studiomiessen.com/

Kings Cross Development Model

Model showing the redevelopment of the Kings Cross area of London and the new terminal for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link
The new Rail Link Terminal is the flat roofed building behind the barrel arched St Pancras Station on the left. The front of St Pancras Station is the ornate Gothic revival Midland Hotel by Sir George Gilbert Scott which is also being redeveloped as accommodation.
The edge of the British Library just encroaches on the far left.
A second collection of tracks converge on Kings Cross Station on the right.

Ref: www.wikipedia.org

Our Team

CDM: Carrying out the construction

CDM Regulations 2007

Our practice

:)

Building control

Discus the plans with a surveyor before application.

Register and fill out application form on Customer Portal 

Pre-site approval (3 types of applicaitons)

1. Full plans

2.Building notice

3. Regularisation

For required documents click here

On-site approval at various stages

-commencement

-completion

-excavation of a foundation

-the foundation itself

-any damp proof course

-any concrete or material over a site

Planning applications --> to see whether a site proposal can be approved

Building control --> to make sure the construction is up to a certain standard

These are two separate applicaitons

Planning Application Process

Check to see if the proposals constitute permitted development

Planning constraints in Camden

Apply for a Lawful Development Certificate

1. Applicant Name and Address

2. Agent Name and Address

3. Site Address Details

4. Pre-application Advice

5. Lawful development Certificate – Interest in Land

6. Council Employee/Member

7. Grounds for Application

You must explain in your own words why you consider a Lawful Development Certificate should be

granted. The evidence necessary to prove your entitlement to a certificate will depend on what is

applied for, but you should always remember that for the emphasis is on the applicant to convince

the local authority that a certificate should be issued. Therefore, the evidence submitted should be

clear and convincing.

8. Description of Proposal

9. Planning Application Requirements - Checklist

10. Declaration

11. Applicant Contact Details

12. Agent Contact Details

13. Site visit

Pre-application advise 

Applications are submitted through National Planning Portal

INFLUENCES: KingsX Opportunity Area as defined by Camden Council

What is the Opportunity Area?

The King's Cross Opportunity Area covers 54 hectares (134 acres) of land in total. In general, the area is bordered by Euston Road and the two main line stations of St Pancras and King's Cross to the south, the North London Line to the north, York Way to the east and the main lines from St Pancras to the west.

Who owns the land?

London & Continental Railways (LCR) are entitled to take full ownership of most of the land in the King's Cross Opportunity Area site once the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) becomes operational with international services to and from St Pancras in 2007.

Exel are the other principle landowners, while British Waterways control the Regent's Canal which flows through the site. LCR and Exel have appointed Argent and St George as their development partners to take forward the development of the site. In the outline planning applications, the site is referred to as 'King's Cross Central'.

How will development be controlled?

During the past three years Camden and Islington councils and the Greater London Authority (GLA) have consulted on a variety of documents and policies that will guide development in the King's Cross Opportunity Area. These polices and documents include:

Our objectives for the new development: 'King's Cross - towards an integrated city' (2001):

Source

Zhan

INFLUENCES: footbridge feasibility study by network rail

Network Rail owns and operates Britain's rail infrastructure.

Colin buchanan (CB) is an urban design and economics consultancy

'CB consider that the study documents by Network Rail 'clearly demonstrate that a footbridge that gives access to York Way would not be of overall net benefit to the station or passengers' and 'any access to York Way would not be practical, cost effective or reasonably able to be implemented'.

Key reasons for not constructing a footbridge

- the costs compared to the benefit

-the safety risks arising from opposing pedestrian flows

-the practicality of building the bridge and the additional operational requirements of managing extra access points and gatelines.

-The future introduction of fully gated access to the platforms considerably diminishes the potential benefit to users of the existing platform 1 route through the station.

Regent’s Quarter

One of the first major mixed use developments, the Regent Quarter development adjacent to Kings Cross Station has transformed disused warehouses and old car park sites into a compact development that fuses old and new in a new quarter for business, shopping and living. Visit: http://www.regentsquarter.com/

Nido London

The conversion of the disused offices into a new 950-bed student village close to the heart of Kings Cross will bring students and visitors to the area. The development named after the Spanish for ‘nest’ will provide a new focus to the area and help continue the regeneration of local shops, bars and restaurants. Visit: www.nidolondon.com

Map: http://www.nidolondon.com/london/kings-cross/where-are-we/interactive-maps.php

King’s Place

This major new office and entertainment facility situated on the Regents Canal at Battlebridge Basin will be the new home of the Guardian Media Group - Publishers of the Guardian Newspaper. This energy efficient HQ office building will also house a new music venue to play host to the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Academy of Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Visit: http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/

from camden archives

today I went to camden archives, in holborn library, to find some pictures of how Camley street and our site looked like before.
and this is what i found:


this is latest addition to archive in 2002



map of area 1871-94




two photographs towards same direction but taken at different time
top one 1887
bottom one 1970
looks like the coal yard was already demolished, in 70s.





pictures in contact sheets taken in 70s
gasworks are still in place, those will be reasembled, on phase 2 of Argent regeneration, and will stand on the other side of canal, from Camley street Nature Reserve.

King' Cross in films

Snapshots from movie The Ladykillers, 1955, showing station and housing in King's Cross.







snapshots from movie High hopes, 1988, housing, lives of locals near station, house where scene was filmed is to be demolished

trainspotters in york station (not about movie)

Wonderfull slide show in guardian website
that really captures change of times.
trainspotters tell stories about collecting numbers of trains and taking pictures af them, being questioned by police, as those are allways suspitious.
here
I think that is amazing - machine can be understood as alive, as something random, that only nature can be. Collecting train numbers as butterflies...


explanation from wikipedia:

Those who are "trainspotters" make an effort to 'spot' all of a certain type of rolling stock. This might be a particular class of locomotive, a particular type of carriage or all the rolling stock of a particular company. To this end, they collect and exchange detailed information about the movements of locomotives and other equipment on the railway network, and become very knowledgeable about its operations.
Those who spend most of their time on one station only are known as "stoats" or "veg". "Cranks" are particularly attracted to one type of train and make sure they see all of its workings. "Neds" concentrate on special rail activity and tend to ignore the regular happenings on the lines, and look for "gen" (information about railway workings) prior to spotting.
trainspotting at wikipedia

I think we should propose to build a trainspotting tower in our site!

jonas

Open City, Ritoque, Chile

slideshow

Open City in Ritoque, Chile

Situated not far from Valparaiso City in dunes next to sea Open City is great example of attempt building without financial constraint, without client, motives for construction were very different. Buildings were built by students of Valparaiso school of Architecture themselves and for themselves. Structures never finished, altered constantly. They appearance and even functions were informed not by usual requirements for buildings; rather those were inspired by poetry, dunes around them. Rejecting projection of power in organisation of spaces, architecture students intended rethink their relationships and therefore rethink functions and organisations of spaces without any plan imposed in advance of creative act.

By rethinking structures already existing in their imagination, influenced by surrealism, guided by their teacher Godofredo Iommi, students started seeing architecture as poetic art, tool that can change the everyday.

disurbanism

Constructivist Michail Okhitovich criticised collectivisation because it abandoned revolutionary ideals – suppressed an individual and established political superstructure. He described Stalinist architecture as neo-feudal and fascist while promoting ‘disurbanism’. This trend neglected planning of cities, stated that existing cities were created in favour of ruling classes. Therefore he claimed that elimination of difference between city and rural area is elimination of difference between capitalist and the worker. Capitalism dismantled the village, forcing locals to move to the cities, and Stalinist architecture only reproduced the same process in favour of centralised power structures, and economy of fear. Following his polemics with the state Michail Okhitovich was liquidated, NKVD arrested him in 1935; and shortly he died in a concentration camp.

part of text about disurbanism you may see here
in: The Modern City Revisited, Thomas Deckker

jonas

Duty of care- RIBA Work Stages

RIBA Work Stages Description of tasks QGC Gateways.

Preparation

Stage A

 

Appraisal

Identification of client's need and objectives, business case and possible constraints on development. Preparation of feasibility studies and assessment of options to enable the client to decide whether to proceed.

Stage B

Design Brief

Development of initial statement of requirements into the Design Brief by or on behalf of the client confirming key requirements and constrains. Identification of procurement method, procedures, organisational structure and range of consultants and others to be engaged for the project.

To do:

draft 1

Our practice focuses on providing platforms for self organisation, enabling localities to act in their interest. Pursue projects that are informed by everyday needs, promote ideas that come out of urban situations those localities are at.

Our aim is to bridge large regeneration projects with smaller and marginal local groups in urban environment. Proposals articulated by our practice consists of providing technical, logistical, and theoretical help to those initiatives that trying to alter urban projects that are aimed to solve challenges at larger - city or national scale. Working closely with local communities we enable their voices to be heard and articulated in order to large investment schemes to be more beneficial for them.


jonas

final brain storm