Above its station

Wooden flooring injects warmth into the 7000m? space.
[More Images]

The newly extended and restored St Pancras station needed interiors that facilitated passenger flow, were sensitive to its Grade 1 listing and were respectful of its standing as a much-loved London landmark

A spectacular feat of Victorian engineering, London’s St Pancras Station was the largest enclosed space in the world when it came into existence in 1868. Since then, it has narrowly escaped the destructive forces of two world wars, the Spice Girls – who charged through it in their first ever music video – and an ill-conceived plan to amalgamate it with King’s Cross Station, to become one of London’s best-loved landmarks.

Recent years have placed it at the centre of an UK £800 million architectural restoration and extension project. This represented a small yet complex component of the wider Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) project, an ambitious effort to lay down a new railway infrastructure connecting London to the Channel Tunnel, and capable of accommodating high-speed Eurostar trains.

In 2004, Arup Associates and Land Design Associates were commissioned by the board of Eurostar to design the passenger areas at the new and improved St Pancras. They would be building on the work undertaken by Rail Link Engineering (RLE) for the base build contract. “The brief from Eurostar to Arup Associates and Land Design Studio was to design a series of showpiece interiors for the customer service areas in the transformed and extended St Pancras Station, an area amounting to 7000m²,” explained project architect, Arup Associates, Mick Brundle.

“Designed in collaboration, these areas included the international departures and arrivals lounges, international ticket hall and Business Premier Lounge, creating a new paradigm of quality and service for international rail travel.”

Facilitating flow

Initial work called for a complete multi-disciplinary approach, and necessitated thorough passenger flow analysis. The design had to pinpoint the strengths and selling points of rail travel and ensure that they were fully facilitated. “The advantage of the railway over other means of transport to continental Europe is the convenience to the traveller and the more sustainable aspects of rail transportation,” said Brundle.

“Trains connect city centres directly, without the inconvenience generally associated with airports. The embarkation time at St Pancras under normal operating procedures was stated by Eurostar to be 10 minutes for Business Premier Passengers and 30 minutes for others, an alacrity of boarding in stark contrast to most air travel,” he added.

In addition to offering easy access to and from the platforms, the design had to ensure that departure lounges could accommodate two full trains-worth of passengers, amounting to some 1,500 people, along with their luggage.

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

The departures area was divided into two distinct spaces, the Business Premier Lounge and the main departures lounge, and stringent airport-type security, as well as both British and French passport control, was incorporated into both. Business-class passengers also required a fast-track system, while the main departure lounge had to include allocated areas for franchised retail. All other retail was located outside the Eurostar customer areas in a large mall accessible to the general public.

Check-in, security and passport control functions were compressed to maximise the space available to passengers awaiting embarkation. The retail area within the departures hall was placed at the northern-most end of the space, as far as possible from check-in and security, in an attempt to draw passengers evenly into the interior.

“Paramount to the layout of the departures lounge and check-in sequence was ensuring passenger flow worked at peak hours, as well as satisfying the border control authorities of the UK and France. This took many studies, as well as passenger flow analysis, based on existing and projected passenger numbers,” Brundle explained.

In the Business Premier Lounge, the extreme linearity of the space, its large gothic revival windows and its antique brickwork created an essence of what Brundle refers to as ‘industrial revolution chic’, which was key in driving the planning of the interior. 

Making the grade

All the while, designers had to keep in mind that the station was one small component of a much larger network. In addition, and most noteably, the design needed to respect St Pancras’ listing as a ‘Grade 1’, a building of outstanding architectural or historic interest, by the UK’s English Heritage group.

“The project was highly complex, and included satisfying a number of interested parties. The challenge of building in an existing Grade 1 interior, with every move vetted by heritage groups, was enormous.

“The number of parties involved and the complexities of the procurement route were very challenging. Furthermore, we had to integrate into an existing master plan and engineering resolution created by the consortium responsible for the delivery of the entire railway system, of which St Pancras was a small part,” Brundle stressed.

Working in close association with all relevant parties, Arup Associates aimed to retain as much of the original fabric of the building as possible. “Throughout the design of the spaces, we were very conscious of the Grade 1 listed building and its history.

“We were very keen on keeping as much of the original fabric exposed as possible, and where new elements were introduced, on keeping a breathing space between the old and new. As well as the original fabric of the Grade 1 listed building, we had to be mindful of the new building fabric, designed as part of the station regeneration,” Brundle said.

---

Page: 1 2