Pencross

Squire & Partners has submitted plans for a contemporary mixed use development on a dual aspect site in King’s Cross addressing Pentonville Road and King’s Cross Road. The plot contains a collection of late Victorian and Edwardian buildings and a Grade II listed chapel, partly obscured by existing buildings on the site.

Designs enhance the setting of the listed chapel by creating a new landscaped public courtyard, animated by retail and café uses at ground floor. The open space mediates between the low scale of proposed development on the King’s Cross Road, and the taller building facing Pentonville Road.

Proposals for the building facing King’s Cross Road create a modest two storey office building which draws away from the Chapel, preserving a view of the rose window in the eastern gable. The elevation comprises a white stone fascia overlaid with a series of narrow bronze fins and a large flush picture window on the first floor.

Facing Pentonville Road, a new building comprises retail and café uses at ground floor, and four floors of office with residential apartments on the upper levels. Elevations are characterised by vertical bronze elements which echo the chapel buttresses, laid out on a rational grid which is then disrupted to underline entrances and uses within the building.