We will shortly be arriving at...

…Platform 37*

(pictured: the east elevation from York Way)

More than 20 years ago, the celebrated ‘blue veil’ in Allies + Morrison’s Masterplan drawings defined a long, imperforate block here, literally following the paths the railways had made, entering and spreading out across the site.

An initial proposal, by AHMM, was abandoned in 2016, after joint Google founder Larry Page described it as ‘too boring’.

Danish metamodernist Bjarte Ingels and critic-of-the-UK-architectural-profession Thomas Heatherwick were appointed to collaboratively re-design Google’s new ‘groundscraper’, 3rd largest office building in the UK**, intended to accommodate all 7000 London 'Googlers’. It is almost finished, expected to open this autumn, and is the final piece in the King’s Cross Central puzzle.

We're going to meet outside Thomas Heatherwick’s new Studio in Argyle Street, then see AHMM’s 10-storey Belgrove House, the London Discovery Research Centre*** intended for research into diseases of ageing and human biology, and then the site in Midland Road, where Richard Rogers’ British Library Extension, including tunnels and passageways for Crossrail 2, will soon be taking shape. It requires the demolition of Long & Kentish’s Centre for Conservation, which was only completed in 2007!

Adjacent is HOK/PLP’s Francis Crick Institute, and then, passing through St Pancras International Station we emerge in Pancras Square, to see Google’s current building at No 6.

Cutting through the station forecourt, we enter the casbah-like ‘Regent Quarter’, the first area around King’s Cross Station to be regenerated.

Its small-scale offices, retail and leisure businesses are in a mixture of refurbished and new buildings arranged around an informal network of passageways and back courts, which leads us to York Way and the stunning, extraordinary east elevation of Platform 37, superbly juxtaposed with the glazed north gables of Lewis Cubitt’s 1852 twin train-sheds.

At this point in the walk, it’s too early to make up your mind about the design, but it’s obviously without precedent****, and, possibly, is not the work of a human hand!

From the towpath of the Regent’s Canal, we can see the north elevation, rearing up from the end of the 330m long building, equivalent to a 80-storey skyscraper on its side.

Finally, King’s Boulevard!

Here it is the backdrop to the busiest desire-line in London!

Anticipation, excitement, car-free of course, safe and secure, and bike-free, thanks to the wardens.

We’ll probably never get to see inside, but I can describe the structural system, hanging the floors from intermediate trusses leaving continuous, and single-, double- and triple-height workspaces in open accommodation, producing continuously cascading work environments, running from one end of the building to the other, very much like open-gangway railway carriages.

On the ground floor will be retail, plus Google’s own AI Exchange, a public venue ‘designed to demystify artificial intelligence through free educational programming, interactive exhibitions, and cultural events’.

It’s dedicated to exploring AI's impact on society and increasing public understanding.

But this building's contribution is to the public realm: like a geological feature: an escarpment, an endless cliff, meandering along a human coast of footfall.

Not as sophisticated as Foster's Bloomberg, not as pure as Piano's Paddington Square. A flag waving in a breeze will never conform to a geometric pattern: it’s a dashed-off sketch, not a thesis!

But even so, unique, different, memorable and like many of Google’s products, ‘free’ to Londoners!

By the way, if AI is half as good as they say, why does Google need so many staff? And such a big building? And what do all those staff do?

I will explain.

Hope you can come!

Andy

* Google’s new, recently announced, official name for their London HQ.
**only Nos 22 and 100 Bishopsgate are larger.
***Developed by Precis Advisory for US pharmaceutical giant Merck, who terminated their involvement last September, but the shell is now topped out and nearing completion.
**** perhaps echoes of the London Bloomberg Building, the Centre Pompidou and the Chips Building by Will Alsop?