Lewis Moberly snaps up St Pancras identity contract

London’s St Pancras station is to be given a new identity, drawn up by Lewis Moberly as part of its £400m revamp.

London and Continental Railways, the organisation that controls and manages the building, has appointed Lewis Moberly to the five-figure project following a three-way pitch against Pentagram and Fortune Street.

More appointments are likely to follow as retailers bring consultancies on board to help design more than 7600m2 of retail space located across the St Pancras site. Architect Chapman Taylor is the lead retail architect on the scheme.

St Pancras station is being restored and modernised to provide a national and international terminal to service the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 2007.

The design team at Lewis Moberly, headed by creative director Mary Lewis, will begin work on developing the St Pancras identity this month. Lewis Moberly is also developing signage and wayfinding to run across the site.

‘This is a unique project. St Pancras will have a completely different offer in its style and quality and the challenge is how best to create an identity to represent this and the phenomenal architecture of the site,’ says Mike Luddy, project director at LCR.

He suggests that the identity will reference the historic nature of the site – St Pancras station is a 130-year-old, Grade I-listed building. The redeveloped scheme also includes bespoke restaurants, retail services and a £150m five star Marriott Hotel featuring 68 loft apartments, bars, leisure facilities and function rooms in St Pancras Chambers, a Gothic-style building that fronts St Pancras station.

Lewis Moberly has also been commissioned to design the brand identity for the new high-speed rail track to Kent.

‘We are creating the naming and identity for the line – it [the identity] will fit somewhere between Transport for London, the Underground and other rail lines,’ says a spokeswoman for Lewis Moberly. The brand is likely to feature across trains and relevant stations along the route.

Lewis believes that when St Pancras station is completed, it ‘will change the way people perceive and experience stations. St Pancras will be a destination brand with a bespoke retail offer and service,’ she adds.

St Pancras station is part of the King’s Cross Central site, which comprises 29ha of land that lies between and behind St Pancras and King’s Cross stations.

St Pancras revamp

• St Pancras station to be augmented and overhauled by 2007

• Retail architect, Chapman Taylor

• More design appointments to follow

• Lighting, Claude Engel

• RHWL and Richard Griffiths Architects to convert 30 000m2 former Midland Grand Hotel into hotel at St Pancras Chambers

• Kings Cross central masterplan by Allies & Morrison, Porphyrios Associates and Townshend Landscape Architects