When infrastructure overdelivers, so does your development

Development is not just about the viability of the land - it is an exercise in creating place. If we think of the most memorable places we know, it is often the public realm that springs to mind. Usually, these bridges are not simply solving the connectivity issues of the place to make it viable, they are an intrinsic part of what makes it memorable. 

Creating placemaking bridges can be seen as a costly addition that burdens a site which is already facing infrastructure-related cost-pressures. If infrastructure is the problem, how can it also be the solution?

Unlocking the placemaking potential of development sites

Often the social value of a bridge isn’t captured explicitly in the brief. As bridge architects we seek this out, exploring how we can deliver something with broader impact. Sixteen years on, my very first project at Knight Architects is still the one I return to as a way of showing how good design thinking from the very outset can unlock such possibility.

The Regent’s Canal Bridge was one of the earliest elements to be completed in the vast regeneration of the railway lands behind King’s Cross station in central London. It spans 27 metres across the canal and, unusually, its primary function was to get district heating and critical services to the University of the Arts across the water, rather than people and cars.

The ‘halo effect’ of transport infrastructure

Argent King’s Cross (now Related Argent), the developers, were an extraordinarily ambitious client, and so our conversations at the briefing stage soon moved on from pure connectivity to consider what kind of contribution the bridge could make to the wider urban realm, how it could help create a sense of place. When it was first designed there was very little new urban realm around it: bridges are often designed on a critical path and are among the first elements of a new development to be delivered. As such, they stand out in their infancy until the development has had time to grow around them. But if we make the right design decisions in the early days, they soon take on a ‘halo effect’, setting off ripples of wider benefit around them.
 

A stage set for city life

The Regent’s Canal Bridge is what we call ‘beautiful ordinary’. It doesn’t try to shout too loudly or make an extravagant statement. Instead, it is a piece of functional, high-quality infrastructure that fulfils a complex pragmatic brief as well as contributing to the sense of place. The bridge carries a huge amount of services and in cross-section these take up a surprisingly large amount of space. What we wanted to do was make the bridge carry this heavy capacity effortlessly, rather than working so hard it compromised peoples’ enjoyment of (or under) the crossing. As a result, most passers-by are completely unaware of the important task it fulfils. The relatively deep deck is made up of a series of T-beams which, once lifted into place, have gaps between them giving lots of room for the services. The whole structure is expressed in a simple concrete ‘picture frame’ which is chamfered on the elevation to give it definition and depth.

It complements the adjacent event space which steps down to the canal and which, in summer, feels like the centre of the development. People sit here to have their lunch in the sun; there are concerts here; Wimbledon is streamed onto large screens; and, although the bridge isn’t the star of the show, it definitely sets the stage.

Adaptable in the long term

An added level of complexity to the early brief was the need for the bridge to carry heavy traffic, whilst still being welcoming to pedestrians and cyclists. At first it had to carry buses across the canal to a turning loop, and that demanded high containment parapets. These enclosures tend to be very heavy, proprietary products, which brought significant constraints to our design. But at the same time, we really wanted people to stop on the bridge, lean up against these parapets and look at the view. So we wrapped the parapet in a fine mesh to avoid climbing and inserted lighting, making only permitted modifications. These gave it a more human scale and a welcoming feel despite the containment credentials. 

Since then the bridge has been modified further – I think for the better – as more areas of the development became pedestrianised, and the deck is now closed to vehicles, and features a full shared surface with granite pavers. Like everywhere across the Kings Cross development, the quality of the materials is very high, and although most visitors aren’t always conscious of it, that attention to detail has contributed a huge amount to the overall sense of place. 
 

Generosity of design thinking

The space underneath the bridge was also important. If you walk along the canal towpaths through Camden, it can sometimes feel a little unsafe because the spaces underneath the bridges feel dark, narrow and cramped. We don’t always have the power to change those geometries because alignment plays such a huge part in bridge design, but we can detail the soffits and abutments, using texture to give them a more human scale, and we can add lighting so they feel more welcoming at night. And, like at King’s Cross, we can be generous. We can add the steps that get you safely down to the towpath, and places to stop so the bridge becomes a place to dwell rather than a space to traverse. Put together, these moves have a catalytic effect on the surrounding urban realm: they increase footfall, which increases commercial revenues, which in turn creates value for the developer client.