IRON WILL

With the closure of its steel plant 30 years ago, Corby became a symbol of Britain’s industrial decline. Hawkins\Brown’s Cube civic centre marks a milestone in the town’s long walk to regeneration

Words Pamela Buxton

Unless you live in the Midlands, the chances are that if you associate Corby with anything, it would be steel and trouser presses. Disappointingly, the famed presses turn out to be nothing to do with the town, and neither, to any extent, is steel anymore. Tellingly, when steel was needed for Hawkins\Brown’s new £30 million Corby Cube civic centre, no local supplier could meet the demand.

But for nearly half a century Corby was a true steel town. Since Roman times it had mined iron ore but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the steelworks was established, and the population soared with the help of migrant Scottish and Irish workers who came for the jobs and stayed. In 1950, it was designated a New Town and expanded further. Even today, some 30 years after British Steel closed the main plant, the Scots influence is still felt, from the distinctive Corby accent to the St Andrew’s flags glimpsed across the town. 

Like any post-industrial town, Corby has had to reinvent itself. It’s been doing so for some time now – first in the 1980s with efforts to establish new industries that helped reduce unemployment from a one-time high of 30%. Local industries now range from distribution, manufacturing, and IT through to motor sport, although many residents travel elsewhere in the Midlands to work. The council hopes to nearly double the population from its current 62,400 to 100,000 by 2020, and for that it needs more housing and more jobs.

After attracting at least £2bn in public and private sector investment over the last five years, there is the sense that Corby’s regeneration is finally gaining momentum. With its distinctive black and white-striped ‘barcode’ appearance, Corby Cube is the focal point of this wave of investment and is due to open this autumn.  It is by no means the only project – the Cube follows the recent opening of the Corby East Midlands International Swimming Pool designed by S&P on a neighbouring site, the Willows shopping centre and the town’s new railway station, which opened last year. There’s even a new academy by Foster and Partners.

‘In the last three years there’s been massive development in the area,’ says Hawkins\Brown associate Euan Macdonald. ‘It’s been a long time coming. Nothing has happened in Corby since the 80s. There’ve been no new buildings of merit since the New Town was built.’

‘[The Cube] is intended to be a feature for the town. It will liven Corby up a bit and give it a bit of oomph,’ says Corby borough councillor and lead member for regeneration Jimmy Noble, adding that the town had lacked a proper civic community building.

Corby Cube is part of the first phase of the Parkland Gateway regeneration project. This will establish a new civic hub and town square on the site of the original New Town civic centre. Situated just west of the shopping centre, it is well placed within Corby town centre but a good mile away from the new station (whose location was governed by the rail route) on the eastern outskirts of the town. The Cube site was previously occupied by the old swimming pool and theatre and is bordered on two sides by roads and one by woodland.

Hawkins\Brown won a competition for the project in 2004 against a shortlist of Rafael Viñoly Architects, Feilden Clegg Bradley and Richard Rogers Partnership. Its clinching strategy was to suggest putting all the facilities in one structure rather than the two separate civic and arts buildings specified in the brief.

This brave approach, which offered economies of shared facilities and freed up an extra development site, won the day. But it gave the architect something of a rod for its own back – how to harmoniously house such diverse functions as a one-stop-shop council facility, theatre, bar, library and rooftop restaurant, while maintaining suitable civic gravitas.

‘Most users wanted ground floor space and presence. Accommodating all that was difficult,’ says Hawkins\Brown’s Macdonald.

The first step was to establish the 7,500m2 building’s orientation on the site. Hawkins\ Brown opted to position it right in the centre of the square, giving it four ‘live’ elevations, one squarely facing the town centre. It is intentionally an object building, its dominant striped cube form creating a new high-profile focus for the otherwise low-rise town.

The architect wanted to create a robust aesthetic that reflected Corby’s industrial heritage and initially planned a steel-structured building with visible steel finishes. As the design evolved it was decided to opt for a predominantly concrete structure – a more cost effective solution which also gave greater thermal mass. However, steel beams are used at upper levels to support cut away elements of the façade. Sleek structural glazing, uninterrupted by louvres or pipes, was chosen to give a crisp façade that accentuates the form as well as having a strong presence of its own by alternating transparent and reflective surfaces.

In many ways, the whole arrangement was governed by the position of the theatre, designed with theatre specialist Charcoalblue. As it didn’t need daylight, the architect dropped it into the two basement levels and created a service road that allows lorries delivering scenery to drive straight down out of sight. 
Meanwhile, more ground floor space was freed up by the decision to locate the council facility on the first floor, and crucially to make a promenade route to it out of the library – arranged on a long shallow ramp which leads visitors up to the first level. This left room for a ground floor café beneath the ramp on the south-west corner. The civic chamber sits above the theatre on the second floor with council offices on the second and third floors and a restaurant and roof garden on the fourth. Areas that don’t need light, like WCs and plant rooms, are housed in the centre of the plan.

Hawkins\Brown wanted the building to have a sense of civic importance on arrival and was determined, despite pressures of space and budget, to have a double-height entrance space.

‘Public buildings have a sense of grandeur through scale. There’s an automatic feeling that you’re in an important building. We wanted to do this in an accessible not an imposing way,’ says Macdonald.

There’s no doubt where the entrance hall is – protruding at ground floor level like a drawer pulled out of a box on the north-east corner. Here, the glazing is transparent rather than reflective. Inside, the columns, walls and soffits are all exposed concrete.

As well as the impression it gives to those entering, this lofty space has a navigational purpose – it gives views up to the one-stop shop on the first floor. Similarly, Hawkins\Brown has given the council chamber the grandeur of a double-height space, using the upper level as a viewing gallery, with views down to the council and out over the town. This generosity will also help its dual function as a venue for events, such as weddings. Externally, the council chamber is highlighted by inverting the glazing pattern to create what Macdonald calls an ‘eye’ on the building.

The circulation route is particularly important at the Cube, envisaged as a journey from street to roof through increasingly intimate spaces that match the changing functions of the building. From the entrance, the 80m-long library ramp is wide and gradual, with visitors proceeding through the checking in and IT area and then doubling back through the bookshelves towards the one-stop shop at the front of the building. The long flight from first to second floor, dubbed the ‘lazy stair’ by Hawkins\Brown because of its languid, gradual nature, is a more conventional staircase. Council workers travelling further up the building use a bespoke steel helical staircase, a sculptural object in itself. 

Theatre-goers have a different route – down to the theatre bar and to the horse shoe-shaped auditorium itself, which will be an ‘indulgent’ space of walnut cladding, tones of red seating and plush balcony fronts in fabric by Timorous Beasties. This Glasgow-based designer is also designing a bespoke carpet for the civic chamber incorporating thistles, in a reference to Corby’s Scottish links. An adjacent basement studio theatre benefits from top light.  The Cube is rated BREEAM excellent – no mean achievement for a theatre building.

Shoehorning so many functions into one space is impressive but there are some disappointments. The art piece lined up for the façade by Nayan Kulkarni is on hold and so far neither the ground floor café nor the top floor restaurant – which has the best views over the nearby woodland – are let, although this situation is not expected to be permanent.

While the building is externally largely complete, the landscaping that will be so important to the square’s impact in Corby is only just starting to take shape.  An expanse of linear composite paving will surround the building and there will be planted terraces alongside the roads. A distinctive black, white and blue striped promenade runs along the front of the pool and alongside the Cube, and oak trees will be planted to line the route. The council is talking to landowners about extending the paving along the shopping thoroughfare, drawing pedestrians through Corby all the way from the civic centre to
the station and vice versa.

Corby still has a long way to go. The next phase of the Parkland Gateway regeneration will focus on bringing new uses to the old pool and theatre sites; and attracting inward investment and jobs will be a long-term, ongoing challenge. The Cube is an ‘inspiring’ building that sets the standard for these future developments, according to Peter Griggs, head of special projects at Corby Borough Council.

Meanwhile, as councillor Jimmy Noble points out, the Cube is ‘something for the town to be proud of.’