KX200 London, Kings Cross Student Flats, Pentonville Rd Building, Architect, Architecture

KX200 Pentonville Road

Nido Student Living, London: Residential Accommodation on Pentonville Road design by AHMM

12 Sep 2009

Student Accommodation, Pentonville Road, Kings Cross, London

Date built: 2007

Design: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Photographs © Nick Weall

Nido Student Living : KX200

KX200 is the redevelopment of three existing buildings on Pentonville Road, Kings Cross, into a mixture of student accommodation, private and social housing, retail and office space. KX200 was a project with an existing planning consent and a ‘parent’ developer when First Base and the architects were invited to investigate where both architectural quality and financial value could be improved. KX200 has been a very rapid project, requiring the team to re-think the usual design & construction sequence, as well as re-thinking the traditional model of student accommodation. The £35m build was completed at the end of 2007.

No 1 Calshot Street

Photographs © Tim Soar:

The architectural expression of the development’s varied functions was key to the design of the building and the negotiation of planning consent. The idea of the horizontal ‘city sandwich’ of different uses layered on top of each other provides a variety of street level activity arranged around the site. The locations of different residential and commercial entrances were tuned to compliment the different characters of the surrounding streets. The retail units, student entrance and new hotel-like reception area are located on Pentonville Road marked with a huge double height portal and semi-private entrance courtyard. Less busy private and social housing entrances are positioned on the quieter side streets: Killick Street and Calshot Street. These share a residential character now reinforced by the new development, as they lead away from the main road towards Tecton’s Priory Green estate.

The new five-storey podium reinstates the city block’s building line to the three streets, and by mixing uses at street level, the scheme provides an animated streetscape with the advantage that 24/7 usage discourages anti-social behaviour and increasing security and a sense of community.

Nido Student Living London – Building Information

Height: 16 storeys
Client: For First Base & The Blackstone Group
Residences: 840 student flats
Address: No 1 Calshot Street, Pentonville Road, Kings Cross
Architects: AHMM – Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Nido Student Living Kings Cross images / information from Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Allford Hall Monaghan Morris – AHMM

KX200 Kings Cross

Location: 1 Calshot Street, North London, England, UK