An iconic industrial London landmark, a Grade II Victorian gasholder in King’s Cross, has been transformed into a stunning new public park.
As part of the on-going regeneration of King’s Cross, an elegant new public space has been created known as Gasholder Park which comprises of a circular green lawn enclosed inside the expanse of a historic structure. Arup worked in close collaboration with the developers, Argent, and designers, Bell Phillips Architects, on the structural assessments to ensure that the dismantlement, relocation and re-erection of the Victorian gasholder was undertaken safely.
The gas holders at King's Cross station were originally built in the 1860s for the storage of town gas. The highly decorative frames were built with two tiers of hollow cylindrical columns and wrought iron riveted lattice girders, and were still in use at King's Cross until 2001.
To complement the Victorian Gasholder Arup engineered a new 30m-diameter mirror-polished stainless steel canopy structure to meet Regent’s Canal on the south west side. Parametric modelling software was also used by Arup to help the architects quickly explore options for the layout of the supporting columns and the parallelogram-shaped perforations that pepper the stainless steel roof-plate.
