On the evening of Thursday 5th July DSE Design Advisors’ Huw Trevorrow and Helen Goodwin led a group of 15 officers and councillors from Woking Borough Council (WBC), together with members of DSE’s recently formed Woking Town Centre Panel on a study tour of Kings Cross.
The purpose for this event was to provide a useful precedent study of an example piece of highly successful urban design and development ahead of DSE’s involvement with Woking Borough Council to advise on tall buildings coming forwards at the pre-app stage.
Peter Bishop, who as former Director of Environment at Camden Council led the negotiations on the Kings Cross development, gave a talk on ‘Kings Cross – the making of a new piece of London’. Peter explained the ambitious vision and extensive negotiations that lay behind the development, emphasising the collaborative process and shared aspirations for high-quality, inclusive place-making. This walking tour took in the considered and well-crafted settings of the area’s heritage assets and the beautiful and diverse range of public spaces that make this piece of the city so successful, desirable and well-integrated.
Our chosen image of the tour illustrates the group within one of the converted Victorian gasholders. This event was well received, here is some of the feedback from WBC: “I wanted to say thank you on behalf of Woking Borough Council for organising such a beneficial and interesting evening yesterday; it’s not even 9am yet and I have had very positive feedback already”.
We look forward to working with Woking Borough Council and the Woking Town Centre Panel on future schemes coming forward.
Click here to find out more about the Woking Town Centre Panel.
