At its next meeting, on 13 June, the Forum will hear from Argent about the plans for:
The meeting is from 7:00 to 9:00 on Thursday 13 June in Committee Room 1 of Camden Town Hall.
At its meeting on 16 May the Forum heard from architects in the Stanton Williams and Bell Phillips practices and the Argent project managers about the detailed plans for:
All of them have emphases on sculptural forms and facings (as exemplified above, for Building T5), but they draw very different conclusions.
Two of the plans had already been submitted as planning applications (2013/2481/P for Building T5 and 2013/1573/P for Building R5). The Forum opted not to respond to them, but its members might make their own responses. The minutes of the meeting describe the buildings as seen from the outside and include some pictures.
The minutes of the meeting also summarise the discussions of the establishment of tenants and residents associations and a meeting of the Construction Impact Group. That meeting covered:
There will be a further meeting, on Thursday 13 June, to look at other expected planning applications.
Malcolm Tucker wrote the following notes after a meeting of the Design Panel that looked at the plans for Gasholder 8.
The plans for Gasholder 8 are much simpler than those that won the design competition in 2009 (reported here) for reasons of economy and flexibility of use. If suitably modified they could allow the original function of the gasholder to be expressed clearly.
A central grass lawn, 25 metres across, is surrounded by a circular walkway rather like a pergola. This is constructed of stainless steel sheets, mirror polished in their upper parts (which could confuse the partially sighted). The walkway is some distance inwards from the gasholder guide frame.
Everything is laid out at the same level as the bases of the cast iron columns, and level with the ground at the side furthest from the canal; externally the ground level slopes down about 1.5 metres towards the towpath. Facing the canal there are stone paved seating areas stepping down as at Granary Square. Between the columns, except where there are steps, the proposal has large planting beds. These deny the essential geometry of the gasholder tank (by imposing a radial division on the space) and might partly obscure the bases of the columns.
The gasholder guide frame had an essential relationship in the original structure to the circular brick tank. This was set in the ground and filled with water; within it the gasholder bell rested at ground level when empty of gas but rose upwards, guided by the columns, when gas entered. As this is a rare example of the preservation of a gasholder guide frame, it should not be divorced from its original context. The most important element was the circular inner edge of the tank, immediately inwards from the bases of the columns and separated from the bell by a narrow strip of water. This should be expressed, at least over an illustrative part of the circumference, by a continuous ring of paving representing the top of the tank wall, while the edge would best be shown with contrasting paving in relief. The radial arrangement of walls dividing the planting beds is contrary to this.
Malcolm Tucker followed this up on behalf of the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS) with an explanatory report, Gasholder No. 8, Acknowledging its Historical Form. available here. Argent has not adopted the recommendations of that report, except for including a strip of contrasting material where the radial paving crosses the line of the tank edge. However, Argent is adopting the suggestion of displaying alongside the gasholder the pump that was used to drain the “dry well” .
At its next meeting, on 16 May, the Forum will hear from Argent about the plans for:
Two of these plans have now been submitted as planning applications (2013/2481/P for Building T5 and 2013/1573/P for Building R5). Responses to them should be sent within twenty-one days.
The meeting is from 7:00 to 9:00 on Thursday 16 May in Committee Room 1 of Camden Town Hall.
There will be a further meeting, on Thursday 13 June, to look at other expected planning applications.
At the meeting on 6 March the Argent project manager and an architect in the Niall McLaughlin practice told the Forum about the detailed plans for Building T1. This provides 129 apartments (95 for private sale, 22 for affordable renting and 12 for shared ownership), a car pack, a games area, a restaurant or shop and the energy centre.
The plans had already been submitted in a planning application (2013/0405/P). The Forum regarded them as better than the earlier plans for the same building in several respects but resolved to comment on them formally. The minutes of the meeting contain a summary of the discussion, along with some pictures. The response by the Forum to the application expands on that summary.
The meeting also heard from one of the occupants of Building R4 (Rubicon Court). It has had several problems, going beyond the teething problems often found in new buildings, as summarised in the minutes. The Forum will see what it can do to help.
The minutes also report the discussion at the meeting about setting up the proposed neighbourhood forum. As noted in earlier meetings of the Forum, considerable effort is needed to organise and maintain a neighbourhood forum for the large King’s Cross area. Support has been enthusiastic but insufficient. Some districts in the area are pressing ahead fast, but others are not. A change of emphasis, towards a grouping of smaller neighbourhood forums and other organisations, can reflect this.
Finally, you can suggest street names for King’s Cross Central here.
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