Camley Street Natural Park sits within the Regent’s Canal Conservation Area, located in the middle of the King’s Cross regeneration area.
Various build-over attempts of the former coal drop, overgrown after disuse, were thwarted by strong local community campaigns since the 1980s. It’s now a designated Site of Importance for Nature Conservation and a statutory Local Nature Reserve, a green oasis of calm.
The London Wildlife Trust has managed CSNP since 1983. It has long been a valued resource for the local community and visitors from further afield looking to spend time in a unique urban nature reserve. The community surrounding CSNP has changed radically in 30 years and the reserve is now at the heart of one of largest redevelopments in London with institutions like University of the Arts London and the Francis Crick Institute, and global businesses like Google within 1km.
This presents both a need to ensure existing communities are engaged in CSNP and an opportunity to reach a wider audience. A key audience are the local and under-served communities of Somers Town, St Pancras, King’s Cross and Caledonian Road, who benefit enormously from the free learning resource that CSNP provides. It's the core of the Trust’s mission to engage the local community with nature, providing education about and exposure to nature for inner city children with high levels of nature deprivation and a wellbeing oasis for local residents and workers.
The new centre needed to house educational events in a fluid indoor/outdoor setting, support nature conservation volunteers maintaining the reserve and provide revenue through event lettings and café sales.
The centre acts as a gatehouse greeting visitors to the park. It comprises a large multi-purpose sub-dividable learning space, volunteer facilities, a small office and WCs. A cafe kiosk serves internal and external areas. The volunteer room is designed to double up as events kitchen. The northern space has direct access to the canal and can accommodate a large marquee rigged against the building for additional event capacity, keeping the building footprint lean. Large covered outdoor spaces with handwash basins enable hands-on outdoor activities.
Volunteers worked with HTA to create a new habitat character area with a biodiverse mosaic of drought tolerant wildflowers, heathland vegetation and mix of substrates and low nutrient soils, providing a new refuge for invertebrates and other wildlife on-site. The wild garden overlooks the terrace and provides opportunities for learning, access to wildlife and an attractive setting for the new centre and event space.
The dark building envelope and roof form with three inverted ‘hoppers’ takes inspiration from the industrial heritage of the site as coal drop. These hopper chimneys are simultaneously optimised as core components of the passive building strategy (day lighting, natural ventilation) and provide nesting places for wildlife. Large roof overhangs protect outdoor activities.
The timber frame, timber clad building has excellent sustainability credentials. Building location and shape were designed to minimise energy demand. Simple passive principles are complemented by established technology that is easy to operate and maintain. A high-performance building fabric (with woodfibre insulation), passive design measures and optimised natural ventilation and light, reduce cost and environmental impact
It was paramount to make the site accessible and to create a calm and inclusive environment which extends from the reserve into the building. This included the introduction of a new seasonal wet landscape along the path to increase the range of fully accessible experiences as well as habitats and biodiversity. Accessible circulation flows easily in, out and around the entire building to allow full integration.
The two pyramidal roof-lights fill the space with north light. The chimney is a key part of the stack ventilation strategy: the external walls of the building have manually operated vents which can be left securely open for night-time purges.
In it's first 18 months since reopening to the public in October 2021, there have been over 159,000 visitors to the site and over 6,000 people have been engaged in high quality activities and events, including school children from inner city London schools, local families and community groups supporting marginalised and underrepresented groups.
‘Being in a place like this… it’s the setting, it brings out the best of us. Because we’re all human. Not all perfect human beings. But being in a setting like this enhances the good aspects of you, and helps you to be who you want to be’
Camley Street Natural Park Volunteer