Projects About Thinking Careers News Contact
Back to Projects

Euston Station Masterplan

With the arrival of HS2, Euston will become London’s largest station by area at 37 hectares, with the entire site encumbered by surface or subsurface rail infrastructure. It is simultaneously an important part of the fabric of the city and in particular the neighbourhoods of south Camden and north Bloomsbury. The brief for this major reworking of the station, the first since the 1960s, was three-fold; to accommodate new and existing rail infrastructure (an interchange for four stations into one); to create public space and active frontages, uniting the different communities and user groups around the station, and to identify the potential for over site development (OSD).

Wilkinson Eyre developed the masterplan for the Euston, with engineering support from WSP; stakeholders included transport-related partners (TfL LUL, Network Rail) conservation and resident groups. The London Borough of Camden, a major landowner and author of the Euston Area Plan was a key strategic partner.

Euston has always had an image problem, invisible on all sides and with no real station square to the main frontage. As the station is so great a footprint, and has been present for so long, a large part of the masterplan’s role is healing connections across the city. Our concept was to address each adjacent (and diverse) neighbourhood with a new frontage or public space, and then connect these neighbourhoods through or over the station, for the first time since the station was built.

The outcome was a workable framework with a clear set of recommendations informing future design decisions. These included improved sightlines and clear primary reference spaces and buildings that improve the image of the station; legible onward connections (and space-take) to buses, taxis and the underground; clearly identified commercial opportunities within the plan; the unification of different adjacent communities through legible pedestrian and cycle routes.

Although a dense city centre site, a strategy to keep as many perimeter trees as possible was established. A network of green roofs and high-level green routes through and over the station maintained bio-diversity corridors. At the northern end, the site narrows into new residential blocks built over the tunnel throat; these were laid out as quiet garden courtyards. Careful thought about the delta of train lines/platforms, and their depth, reduced the overall dig requirement by millions of cubic metres, and operational considerations balanced an oversite build with natural daylighting and ventilation of the main station.

Related
HS2 Old Oak Common
Old Oak Common is the interchange station for HS2 as it enters London from the north west, linking the high speed line with conventional rail to the West of England, Wales and Heathrow.
Front entrance of Liverpool Street Station Elizabeth Line
Elizabeth Line, Liverpool Street Station
The Elizabeth Line, built as Crossrail, is one of the largest infrastructure projects undertaken in Europe.
Render of Birmingham International Station
Birmingham International Station
WilkinsonEyre was appointed for the appraisal of an existing Feasibility Study and to develop and gain approval for GRIP 3 from Network Rail for the upgrade of the existing Birmingham International Station.
Get in touch with us
  • [email protected]
  • [email protected]
  • [email protected]
  • London

    33 Bowling Green Lane
    London EC1R 0BJ
    United Kingdom

    T +44 (0)20 7608 7900 [email protected]
  • Hong Kong SAR

    13/F China Hong Kong Tower
    8-12 Hennessy Road
    Wan Chai, Hong Kong

    T +852 2110 8055 [email protected]
  • Sydney

    201 Kent Street
    Sydney PO Box R55
    NSW 2000, Australia

    T +61 02 9247 07 40 [email protected]
Instagram LinkedIn Twitter
Privacy Policy
  • Design TM
  • Development morphsites