12 October 2010
The Northern Ticket Hall at King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground
station has won the ‘Civil Engineering Achievement of the Year’
category at the National Rail Awards.
The 2000 square metre ticket hall, which is located to the west
of King’s Cross mainline station and to the north of the Great
Northern Hotel, increases station capacity and provides a major
boost to passenger movement between mainline services at King’s
Cross and St Pancras International stations and the London
Underground network. It will also play a vital role in the transfer
of passengers during London 2012.
Capita Symonds and its architecture division – Capita
Architecture – provided multidisciplinary design and management
services on the scheme as part of a Balfour Beatty Civil
Engineering/Balfour Beatty Engineering Services joint venture.
The company’s work involved the development of elements of the
concept design into construction information and
coordination/detail design of the principle services. The
production of coordinated drawings for the engineering services
were aided by the early construction of a 3D CAD model of the
building and services, allowing multiple engineers to work
concurrently on the production of detailed installation drawings
and subsequently produce accurate record drawings.
As well as creating a new ticket hall, the project also
comprised the creation of 300 metres of new tunnels linking the
ticket hall with the Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria line
platforms; ten new escalators and five lifts to provide step-free
access to the Victoria and Piccadilly Tube lines from the ticket
hall (a lift to the Northern line will be installed by mid 2010); a
new ticket office; automated ticketing machines; and retail units.
The ticket hall also includes all the back of house facilities and
the electrical and mechanical plant rooms below it.
The new ticket hall is part of the wider £800m redevelopment of
King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground station