Imagineering the Future of King’s Cross

Futuropa Participatory Design Workshop

2002

For our workshop in King’s Cross the tool of construction and implantation is the production of a first edition of postcards together with the participants. We use a technique of literal superimposing images of modern architecture over King’s Cross. Architectonic examples come from Euralille, the infrastructure TGV hub on the European continent, that is taken as the mirror into the future development of King’s Cross. The images of significant buildings from Euralille are collaged like in a 3 dimensional Photoshop application and scaled up to pieces of scenery that can be carried around like bags and bakkbags on the site. Participants can express their feelings about the different architectonic typologies, can literally “feel like a building” and pose in front of King’s Cross settings directed and photographed by other participants. Through Imagineeering the Future of King’s Cross they produce the output for the first edition of postcards and are trained to make further journeys with their own set of sceneries producing further editions of postcards. This can be seen as tactics for the production of a masterplan of collective wishes for the future development infiltrating and enriching the official planning strategies for the site.