Rolling Stock Yard Offices / Squire & Partners

Rolling Stock Yard is a new development in King’s Cross designed as a contemporary response to its industrial setting providing 57,500 sq ft of workspace for creative small to medium-sized businesses. The design concept draws on the area north of King’s Cross St Pancras, historically characterised by the machinations of transport, freight, and industry, and now an emerging creative quarter. Converging railway lines and shipping containers are referenced in the nine-storey building, expressed as a series of stacked elements with a black profiled steel structure emulating parallel railway tracks running horizontally across the facades. Within this horizontal grid, full-height glazing is softened by a layer of vertical solid oak sleepers and sinusoidal perforated metal screens to offer privacy and shade during daylight hours, and emit a diffused glow at night. At pavement level, the building animates the street with bespoke illuminated entrance signage behind a corrugated metal screen, and a double-height office entrance addressing York Way.