The King's Cross area of central London is currently in the midst of an incredible redevelopment that is seeing the area known for heavy industrial use for over 150 years being transformed into a vibrant new city quarter with new homes, shopping, offices, restaurants and more. Of course, with such extensive redevelopment comes new streets, and those streets need to be named, but instead of simply naming the roads themselves, Argent, the developer behind the redevelopment, has been working with Camden Council and 10,000 members of the public to name them, literally giving the streets back to the people in the process! There are currently 31 names shortlisted for the scheme, which include names such as Modern Prometheus, Plimsoll Place, and Potato Lane.
Argent has been working with Camden Council and 10,000 members of the public to name the new streets being built as part of the King's Cross renovation
The consultation stage has taken over two years, with engagement from major stakeholders such as the Royal Mail and even the Emergency Services. Apparently, one of the primary reasons it's taken so long is simply because they wanted to make sure there were no duplicate road names, especially any that already existed in London. The process was handled by the Soundings consultation group, which created a series of data visualisations showing where people voted from and which names were most popular in certain locations. Many of those visualisations (or at least parts of them) can be seen on this very page, and were made up from 10,035 entries from 5000 different people from all over the world.
The King's Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP) was set up by Argent to handle the King's Cross redevelopment, which will eventually lead to the creation of 2,000 new homes, and already plays host to the Central Saint Martins University of the Arts, as well as several commercial and retail spaces. Road names for the area will now be picked from the shortlist as and when they’re needed, with “Wollstonecraft Street” being chosen as the first road name earlier this month. The street was named for Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights, and the mother of Mary Shelley, author of the immortal horror novel "Frankenstein.”
Pipers Design has created an exhibition celebrating the renovation called “10,000:1 Naming The Streets of King’s Cross”
To celebrate the initiative, the KCCLP has asked Pipers Design to create an exhibition telling the story of the street naming process from beginning to end. Pipers were approached thanks to their existing interior design work at the King's Cross Visitor Centre, where the exhibition will take place between the 27th of March and the 30th of April. Called “10,000:1 Naming The Streets of King’s Cross,” it is the first exhibition to be held at the centre, and builds on the work created by Soundings by taking the colourful lines used in the visualisations, and using the motif throughout the exhibition, as well as on exhibition merchandise (badges, programmes and the like). Many of the original visualisations have also been blown up for display.
Pipers Design director Matthew Quinn, said that when the exhibition opens, “100 or so people who had voted for the same names and live locally will be given name badges with their street name on and they’ll be encouraged to go and find people who came up with the same name – people who are wearing the same tag.” This is a great way of bringing the community together and engaging them in the redevelopment process. Quinn added that the shortlisted road names will be displayed and explained, so that visitors can get a sense of why certain names were chosen and were not. Pipers has also created a fresh identity specifically for the exhibition, which “Mimics street signs” and fully embodies the modern urban atmosphere the area is attempting to embody. Personally, as someone who doesn't live in London, I'm all for urban regeneration, to a point. If it's taken too far of course, it can quickly turn into homogenisation, but London is so vast and so eclectic I see no danger of that happening any time soon.
Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and struggling musician from Kidderminster in the UK.
