shedkm and Studio Egret West have co-authored the innovative design behind the entrance to the brand new station at Brent Cross Town, which opened on 10 December 2023 with The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
The design creates a befitting arrival point to a new destination at Brent Cross Town and, picking up the masterplan’s wider themes of wellbeing and access to nature, combines both the station functionality with a planted public space.
The station’s impressive, highly sustainable eastern entrance, The Arbour, which provides a gateway into Brent Cross Town, was co-authored by Studio Egret West and shedkm, with Studio Egret West retained to evolve the design through detail and construction stages. It includes a lofty timber canopy that covers a multi-level arrival sequence, picking up Brent Cross Town’s focus on wellbeing and access to nature by combining functionality with a planted public space. The large-scale glulam timber frame was developed to sit comfortably between, and connect to, two future office buildings.
The Arbour is also home to a giant piece of public art, ‘Time passes & still I think of you’, by celebrated Barnet-raised artist Giles Round, which covers 250m2 of the station’s main concourse with brightly coloured vitreous enamel panels.
Brent Cross West is the first new mainline station to be built in London in over a decade. The impressive new Thameslink station is situated between Cricklewood and Hendon stations and is the gateway to new neighbourhood Brent Cross Town, where shedkm have also designed offices for Related Argent and Barnet Council.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “Brent Cross West station, the first major new mainline station in London in over a decade, will be transformative for northwest London, better connecting Brent Cross with the rest of the capital and unlocking wider development in the area. The station will serve as a gateway to a Brent Cross Town, a brand-new neighbourhood delivering new homes, creating jobs, and aiming to be net zero by 2030.
Brent Cross West is part of the biggest redevelopment and growth programme Barnet Council has ever undertaken and one of the most ambitious in Europe. It is essential to unlocking wider development in the area and has been designed as a gateway to a new neighbourhood called Brent Cross Town, a 180-acre, net zero development being delivered in partnership between Barnet Council and Related Argent.
Brent Cross Town will deliver 6,700 new homes, 3 million ft2 of offices creating space for 25,000 employees, along with a new high street.