Creative Exchange, St Neots, Cambridgeshire
- Client: Huntingdonshire District Council
- Principal designer: 5th Studio
- Principal engineer: 5th Studio
- Principal contractor: SDC Special Projects
- Contract value: £1.53 million
About the project
The Creative Exchange is a new public arts centre, comprising galleries, training and events spaces, and private workshops for around 14 creative companies.
5th Studio was commissioned through competitive interview. The brief called for ‘an exceptionally high-quality flagship enterprise centre’ in the growth corridor of St Neots, within a budget of £1 million. Additional funding was sought to meet these aspirations, raising the budget by £500,000 and leading to continuous value engineering by the design team.
This uncompromisingly contemporary building is a bold and unusual addition to the local area. It has an exposed concrete frame and two upper cantilevered levels, with ‘huts’ clad in sustainably sourced larch. Set in mature parkland, the Creative Exchange forms a gateway to a secondary school, Longsands College. A newly planted avenue of 13 mature lime trees links the two and reinforces the edge to the park.
The building has a BREEAM certification of ‘very good’, the highest possible for a greenfield location. Among the sustainable strategies used is a 900mm concrete pipe buried deep in the ground, creating an earth duct, drawing in cool air in summer and warm air in winter.
Judges' comment
"West Cambridgeshire has seen nothing like this before. The Creative Exchange has become a beacon for exhibitions, training and events."