Kingston Ancient Market Place

THE CHALLENGE

SYSTRA was initially commissioned by the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames to undertake a comprehensive public realm enhancement strategy for the Ancient Market Area (AMA) in the heart of Kingston town centre. Following detailed public consultation and analysis of the public realm, a series of concept designs were developed working architectural practice Tonkin Liu.

The commission extended to include detailed design of the preferred scheme, leading a design team comprising Tonkin Liu as architects and specialist structural, lighting and M&E consultants.

The preferred scheme comprised:

• A continuous paved surface formed with three shades of granite blocks to replace the disjointed patchwork previously in existence
• Feature market stalls to replace the run down existing stalls
• A new lighting scheme
• New complementary street furniture
• Pop up power points for temporary market stalls

SYSTRA’S ROLE

SYSTRA coordinated a series of public consultation exercises to establish the existing usage of the public realm. The results of the consultation were used to develop design proposals to RIBA Stage C, subsequently developed to Stage D including a materials palette.

Coordinating the efforts of the design team, a comprehensive design package was prepared sufficient to tender and construct the scheme. SYSTRA designed the levels for the proposed surface to create a smooth step free surface. SYSTRA also undertook the pavement design in accordance with BS 7533 .

To accommodate the new market stalls, SYSTRA compiled existing utility records and commissioned a GPR survey to mitigate, where possible, any diversions. Where diversions were inevitable, SYSTRA coordinated C3 and C4 enquiries.

New surface and foul sewers were designed by SYSTRA to drain the market square and replace the inadequate existing systems.

The GPR survey identified buried air raid shelters under the market place and designed the measures to backfill them thereby enabling construction of the paved surface and market stalls over.

SYSTRA were retained to provide design services during the construction phase and developed solutions to problems encountered during the works.

In addition to a wealth of engineering experience, SYSTRA utilised a number of specialist software packages to prepare the detailed design submissions; including:

• PDS: a 3D highway design package which has enabled the design of the proposed surface and outputs all relevant setting out information
• AutoTrack: vehicle swept path analysis tool
• Microdrainage: a powerful drainage design tool which has been used to design the proposed highway drainage