Luton Central Library
Luton, Bedfordshire
Feasibility study to transform Luton Central Library into a mixed-use community hub with active frontages, aligned to town centre programme.
Harlow, Essex
Arts & Cultural Quarter
Harlow Council
Set to be delivered using £20m of investment secured in 2023 via the Government’s Levelling Up Fund, the scheme is intrinsically linked to Harlow’s ambitious town centre regeneration programme and the Harlow Town Centre Masterplan Framework and will provide a new, welcoming western gateway into Harlow Town Centre.
The scheme achieved unanimous planning approval in April 2024, with council officers describing the application as "exemplary" and praising its "high-quality" design.
Key Information
1,900sqm
performance & arts space
47
affordable apartments
>9,000sqm
enhanced public realm
>750sqm
commercial floorspace
A regeneration scheme to create a new western gateway to Harlow town centre with new arts facilities, residential homes and a pedestrian‑first public realm.
- Two-storey ‘extension’ to the Playhouse theatre — providing flexible performance and creative arts studio facilities, including spaces for events, dance, teaching hire and classes; a music school with rehearsal and recording facilities; a new café; changing rooms and booking office.
- A new part-five, part-six storey mixed-use building — will deliver 47 affordable one and two-bedroom apartments, together with ground floor commercial space, offering flexible rooms for hire, and a new home for the Gibberd Gallery.
- Public realm improvements — including a new public square and pocket park, an outdoor stage, and improved east-west connections.
The scheme consolidates arts and cultural uses to enliven Playhouse Square, framing key views to the Grade II listed St Paul’s Church and strengthening pedestrian links to the Transport Hub, Market Square, the Harvey Centre and the Water Gardens in line with the Town Centre Masterplan Framework.
The two-storey performance & arts building, to be known as ‘Playhouse Quarter’, will provide over 1,900sqm of space across two storeys, for flexible performance, rehearsal and teaching, a music school with recording facilities, and a new café and booking office. The building features permeable frontages to the square and a material palette responding to the modernist town centre context.
Over 9,000sqm of enhanced public realm will sit central to the scheme and deliver a central outdoor stage, green spaces, SuDS rain gardens, tree planting, a children’s pocket park, and a new taxi drop off, designed to be pedestrian-first while maintaining essential servicing.
A residential-led, mixed-use building, arranged as two volumes over a stratified base–middle–crown façade, will provide 763 square metres of commercial floorspace on the ground floor. A large gallery space - providing a new home for the Gibberd Gallery – will occupy the northeastern corner, whilst smaller units are situated to the northwestern corner. On the upper floors (1st to 5th), 47 affordable residential apartments will be provided, in a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, all of which will benefit from their own private balcony area and access to a first-floor communal terrace.
The project follows a fabric-first approach and includes air source heat pumps, on site photovoltaics and green infrastructure, with an indicative 15% biodiversity net gain and a targeted 49.4% operational CO₂ reduction against Part L 2021 across the site.
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