2013 International Design Exchange Project, the 4th Hidden Space Project, The rise of the creative district

As Course Leader of the Interior Design Course at the CASS London Metropolitan University, it’s fundamentally important to teach not just how to design but how design will change how people engage with or encounter spaces therefore developing or encouraging new habits and ways of living. \n \nThe following work looked at an area of London that has been forgotten. Kings Cross is the gateway to the North and therefore carries important railway and canal infrastructure, allowing trade to travel up and down the country. Because of this, it has never been a fashionable part of London and in fact has been home to many of London’s more unfortunate people, those with very little in terms of money and therefore has been synonymous with the worlds of crime and prostitution. \n \nAs the City has developed this area has been designated as an area for redevelopment and has now been coined as London’s new Creative District. Regents Canal which runs through Kings Cross and will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2020. The canal’s history of connecting local communities and beyond, through trade and business and ancillary industries has now been lost since rail and roads took their business at the end of the 19th Century. Some people choose to live on the canal in barges but apart from some low key sporting events, the canal is largely redundant and extremely polluted with Nitrogen levels dangerously high in the afternoon. This clearly won’t encourage anyone to live or work nearby. Councils are seeking to provide stronger relationships within local communities due to a perceived disconnection of age, culture and values and therefore the project asked, how can an intervention on, over, adjacent or connected to the canal, enable neighbourhoods to come together, building a legacy of interaction and creativity for future generations.