Understanding the power of reconnecting communities within our cities.
Strategy
A disconnected site in the heart of Camden occupied by J. Murphy & Sons Ltd. for well over fifty years is now ready to be reimagined. Our plans for Murphy’s Yard will deliver a truly mixed use scheme that has the potential to complement and enhance Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, and other surrounding areas.
By opening up a large locally significant industrial site to the public for the first time in centuries, our vision is to establish an industrial and residential led neighbourhood connecting Kentish Town to Gospel Oak and Hampstead Heath with a new multi-level piece of green urban infrastructure known as the Heath Line.
The locally listed former railway sheds at the centre of the site establish a clear reference to the large scale rail infrastructure which historically informed the identity of Murphy’s Yard as the Midland Railways engine depot. The conjoined sheds are proposed to be retained in part, and their large scale footprints used to inform and define a critical mass of mixed-use space at the heart of the scheme.
In doing so, we intend to develop exemplar buildings that embrace the history and heritage of the area, as well as the potential of the future; offering sustainable new models of working and living.
Specificity
The scheme will deliver at least 750 new homes – with 35% affordable housing – as well as new office, industrial, healthcare and commercial spaces. Opening the site and warmly welcoming people in for the first time, the proposed framework for Murphy’s Yard will stitch into the surrounding urban grain and street structure, creating a more porous and inviting street network. New open spaces will complement the surrounding areas of Kentish Town and Gospel Oak, providing generous areas of public open space and green pedestrianised routes linking key transport nodes and local green spaces.
At the heart of the scheme new life will be brought in to the site’s heritage locomotive sheds. By retaining
and celebrating their historic fabric and industrial character the identity of the site is preserved.
Murphy’s Yard landscape and public realm strategy aims to reflect and compliment the surrounding context, taking inspiration from the ecological, historic and amenity spaces of Hampstead Heath.
Murphy’s Yard will become an extension of the Heath through the proposed ‘Heath Line’. The aims of the ‘Heath Line’ are to highlight and accentuate the found characteristics on the Heath and reflect them in an urban context within our site. The ‘Heath Line’ is based around three key objectives; ecology, heritage and places.
Incorporating key aspirations from the Kentish Town Planning Framework, the Heath Line will run the full length of the site, connecting Kentish Town to Hampstead Heath, whilst the start of the Makers Lane creative industries corridor, will additionally forge an important path through the scheme. These important routes offer access into and through the site with enhanced gateways amplifying the sense of arrival, as well as bridging new connections to the emerging development across the railway on the Regis Road site.
Awards
Team
