To many Londoners, Brent Cross is best known for its shopping centre. Now, though, there is an ambitious regeneration project underway on 180 acres of land to the south of the shopping centre. Brent Cross Town will be a new park town for future London, and is being driven by the developers behind the transformation of King’s Cross, Argent, and Related, the largest private developers in the US. The Argent Related company was formed in 2015. Nick Searl, Partner at Argent Related and the joint lead on the project, joined us for a conversation to share how the ambitious development will put the spotlight on sport, play, and community wellbeing.

Placemaking is a huge topic right now – I think many people hadn’t realised how important access to public space was pre-pandemic. Do you have any suggestions for places who are looking to think more innovatively about public space and build physical wellbeing into their strategy?

I think the term ‘placemaking’ has become an overused term. At times we see a few chairs, some plants and a piece of artwork referred to as ‘placemaking’, which is rather missing the point. ‘Placemaking’ is not a thing or even a series of things, it’s an on-going process that requires us to think more broadly about the nature of the kind of places and the kind of cities that we’re trying to create. At Argent Related we tend to start by thinking about the public spaces and the ground floor experience generally. The interaction between the ground floor of buildings and public spaces and the ability of people to not just see into buildings but to move in and out of them is really important.

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