The human city, King's Cross Central: 03 Roger Madelin/Demetri Porphyrios

摘要

Dazzling, hectic and dirty, the King's Cross area, situated at the heart of London, wears the tensions of its history and its locality in its design. A walk up Euston Road through Somers Town and towards Regent's Canal will take you along some of the most eclectic and absorbing streets of London, past the sedate terraces of the British Library, through bustling side-street markets, down where swanky gastro-pubs hunker alongside social-housing estates, along where the gasworks and canals, ghosts of the area's industrial past, neighbour art galleries and wildlife reserves. This book takes the reader through this urban menagerie and, from there, to a studio in Yale, New Haven, where, under the guidance of developer Roger Madelin and architect Demetri Porphyrios, students grapple with this site of contradiction, endeavouring to create designs for a 'human city' in synchronicity with this diverse landscape.