Coal Drops Yard, London King’s Cross Buildings, British Commercial Building Redevelopment, Images

Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross in London

Regeneration Architecture Redevelopment in UK – design by Heatherwick Studio

26 Oct 2018

Coal Drops Yard King’s Cross

Architects: Heatherwick Studio

Coal Drops Yard Buildings

Heatherwick Studio’s Coal Drops Yard, a major new shopping district and public space in King’s Cross, London, was unveiled today ahead of its public opening on Friday 26 October 2018.

photo © Hufton+Crow

Long-time resident of King’s Cross, the studio has reinvented two heritage rail buildings from the 1850s as a new shopping district with close to 60 units, fully opening up the site to the public for the first time.

photos © Hufton+Crow

The project is the first major building completion in London for Heatherwick Studio and one of several large-scale developments in the capital that the studio is currently working on. These include a new major building for Google in King’s Cross that is currently under construction and the transformation of Olympia London.

photos © Hufton+Crow

In 2014, the studio was commissioned by King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership to radically rethink the site. The pair of elongated Victorian coal drops was built to receive coal from Northern England for distribution around London by barge and cart. But over the years the ornate cast-iron and brick structures had become partially derelict, serving light industry, warehousing, and nightclubs before partial abandonment in the 1990s.

photo © Luke Hayes

The challenge was to transform the dilapidated buildings and long, angular site into a lively retail district where the public could gather and circulate.

photo © Luke Hayes

The design extends the inner gabled roofs of the warehouses to link the two viaducts and define the yard, as well as creating fluid patterns of circulation. The flowing roofs, supported by an entirely new and highly technical freestanding structure interlaced within the heritage fabric, rise up and stretch towards each other until they touch. This forms an entirely new floating upper storey, a large covered outdoor space and a central focus for the entire site.

photo © Luke Hayes

The studio’s design celebrates the specific texture and history of the Victorian industrial buildings while creating 100,000 sq ft of new retail area, as well as significant public space. The units vary in size (ranging from 160 sq ft, 1300 sq ft, 2500 sq ft to over 20,000 sq ft), accommodating a wide range of established and emerging brands, alongside new restaurants, bars and cafes.

photo © Luke Hayes

With entrances at both ends of the site and scattered along Stable Street, the yard will become a new permeable and distinctive public space, contributing to the wider transformation of King’s Cross as a vibrant place to live, work, relax and study.

photo © Luke Hayes

Led by King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP), construction began on the project in early 2016.

Thomas Heatherwick, Founder of Heatherwick Studio, said:
“ It has been a huge privilege working on Coal Drops Yard, not only because it’s the studio’s first major building completed in London, but also because it is in King’s Cross, where my studio and I have been based for the last seventeen years .

photos © Hufton+Crow

These amazing Victorian structures were never originally built to be inhabited by hundreds of people, but instead formed part of the sealed – off infrastructure of London.

photo © Luke Hayes

After serving so many varied uses throug hout the years, we’ve been excited by the opportunity to use our design thinking to finally open up the site, create new spaces and allow everyone to experience these rich and characterful buildings. ”

photo © Luke Hayes

Lisa Finlay, Group Leader at Heatherwick Studio, said:
“ Our challenge was to radically remodel this Victorian infrastructure to meet the needs of a modern urban development without losing what made them special. To do this, we focused on understanding their original function and how they were adapted over time so we could appreciate how best to preserve and reuse the existing fabric, whilst also introducing new elements. One of which is an entirely free – standing new structure threaded through the historic buildings, from which a spectacular new third level is suspended. ”

photo © Hufton+Crow

Coal Drops Yard, London – Building Information

Founder: Thomas Heatherwick
Group Leader: Lisa Finlay
Project Leader: Tamsin Green
Project team: Jordan Bailiff, Einar Blixhavn, Erich Breuer, Darragh Casey, Jennifer Chen, Dani Rossello Diez, Ben Dudek, Andrew Edwards, Alex Flood, Daniel Haigh, Phil Hall-Patch, Steven Howson, Sonila Kadillari, Michael Kloihofer, Nilufer Kocabas, Ivan Linares Quero, Elli Liverakou, Freddie Lomas, Jose Marquez, Mira Naran, Ian Ng, Hannah Parker, Monika Patel, Luke Plumbley, Jeff Powers, Thomas Randall-Page, Emmanouil Rentopolous, Angel Tenorio, Takashi Tsurumaki, Pablo Zamorano

photo © Luke Hayes

About Heatherwick Studio
Heatherwick Studio is a team of 250 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone. Based out of our combined workshop and design studio in Central London, we create buildings, spaces, master-plans, objects and infrastructure. Focusing on large scale projects in cities all over the world, we prioritise those with the greatest positive social impact.

Working as practical inventors with no signature style, our motivation is to design soulful and interesting places which embrace and celebrate the complexities of the real world.

The approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design dogma.

The studio’s multi award-winning completed projects include Zeitz MOCAA, the conversion of a disused grain silo into a new museum for contemporary art in South Africa; the Learning Hub at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University; and the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

The studio is currently working on approximately 30 live projects in ten countries. Projects under construction include a 16-storey landmark for Hudson Yards and a new park and performance space, Pier55, in the Hudson River, both in New York. Construction on new major headquarters for Google are also underway in both King’s Cross and Silicon Valley (in collaboration with BIG). The studio is also working on the design of Changi Airport’s new Terminal 5 in Singapore (with KPF) which will add an initial capacity of up to 50 million passengers per year.

photo © Luke Hayes

About King’s Cross
King’s Cross
is London’s new creative quarter, home to 67 acres of inspiring businesses and outstanding architecture, destination restaurants and a vibrant cultural scene – a lively place in central London to visit day and night. The area’s industrial past has inspired the 50 new and repurposed buildings; the public spaces between them are a mix of parks, streets, squares, and gardens, with Granary Square and its fountains as a heart.

Over 12,000 people now work in the area in companies including Google, Havas, PRS for Music, Louis Vuitton, Camden Council, The Office Group, ArtFund and Universal Music. Facebook, in one of the most significant commercial deals in London’s recent history, are also set to take 600,000 sq ft of commercial space across three buildings from 2021.

photo © Luke Hayes

King’s Cross has close to 2,000 homes – a mix of private, rental, student and affordable housing. All have been designed with care by a number of renowned architecture practices. Only around 900 of these homes are for private sale, with the stand-out development being Gasholders London, 145 canal-side apartments built within Grade IIlisted cast-iron gasholder frames.

Already known as a foodie hotspot, King’s Cross is now establishing itself as a shopping destination. Nike, 18Montrose, Spiritland, Jigsaw, Carhartt WIP, Sweaty Betty, Space NK & Other Stories and Waitrose are already open. The vision will complete when the Heatherwick Studio-designed Coal Drops Yard, London’s newest shopping street, opens in a pair of reimagined Victorian coal buildings on 26 October 2018, creating 100,000 sq ft of shops, bars and restaurants in the centre of King’s Cross. .

The King’s Cross estate is owned by the King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership, made up of A

Photography: Hufton+Crow and Luke Hayes

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