Milton Keynes Shopping Centre
Subscribe now to instantly view this image
Subscribe to the Architects’ Journal (AJ) for instant access to the AJ Buildings Library, an online database of nearly 2,000 exemplar buildings in photographs, plans, elevations and details.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Entrance to long arcade
Martin Charles and Richard Davies Download Original
Glass-covered shopping centre built to accommodate 130 shops and six department stores, arranged down two parallel daylit arcades
The building has a number of features uncommon in large scale shopping centres. All of the retail spaces are accessed from the ground level, creating an extended arcade. At the time of construction the building was the longest shopping centre in the world.
A service road runs above the centre, so that service lorries access shops at roof level, removing the service roads and loading bays from ground level, out of view of the shoppers.
Many of the early designs for buildings in the new town were strongly modernist and the design of the new shopping centre was seen as an opportunity to modernize, incorporating a High Tech style into a minimalist ideal.
Data
- Begun: Apr 1975
- Completed: Apr 1979
- Floor area: 133,416m2
- Sectors: Retail, Public realm
- Total cost: £23.9M
- Tender date: Jan 1974
- Procurement: Fluctuating JCT Clause 31A with two-stage tender
- Address: thecentre:mk, 24 Silbury Arcade, Milton Keynes, MK9 3ES, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Milton Keynes Development Corporation
- Project architects: Chris Woodwood, Derek Walker, Stuart Mosscrop
- Client: Milton Keynes Development Corporation
- Structural engineer: Felix J. Samuely
- Civil engineer: MKDC
- Main contractor: John Laing Construction
- Services engineer: Steensen Varming Milcahy
- Landscape architect: MKDC
- Quantity surveyor: MKDC