London NC1

A brand-new postcode for 20 new streets with 50 new buildings and as many as 45,000 people living, working, and studying here: that’s London NC1. This new area just north of the city’s King’s Cross railway station has been completely redeveloped in the past decade. With Central Saint Martins art college at its heart, the area now offers an intriguing mixture of old industrial heritage which has been converted and reused, but is still full of character – like the Granary building – and completely new modern developments. With plenty of open spaces, restaurants, galleries, a street food market, a music venue, The Guardian newspaper headquarters, and even a mobile ‘skip garden’... Organic vegetables are grown here in skips that constantly move to new locations as the King’s Cross area is further developed. Most of the produce is used in their own Skip Garden Café or sold to nearby restaurants.

And then there are the Handyside Gardens, situated between a former railway shed and an apartment building. Landscape and garden designer Dan Pearson created a family-friendly park here, full of raised beds built of Corten steel, where the plants provide plenty of interest all-year-round. Although London NC1 is far from finished – there’s still plenty of building going on – the area certainly looks to have a promising future.