Station Hill, a 6.5-acre mixed-use redevelopment project, is positioned at key entrances from Reading Station, Friar Street and Garrard Street, is at the confluence of three important high streets for the town. Audiences, residential and commuter, will pass through here. In an area already home to international businesses and national importance, Station Hill’s success must incorporate a balance of outward-looking ambition and inward appreciation of Reading’s existing economic, social, environmental and cultural assets.
Futurecity was commissioned by Lincoln MGT to devise the Public Art and Cultural Strategy as part of the developer’s Section 106 obligations. The strategy sets a vision of Station Hill as a front door to Reading, a gateway to the town’s creative and multifaceted cultural offer and a wayfinding beacon that draws eyes and minds into the town day after day, year after year. The planning conditions were reinterpreted into Public Art and Cultural Framework Objectives that give purpose to the public realm improvements, public art and additional events spaces. These can be accessed by the greater community to create a strong and successful identity for the new creative district.
The Public Art and Cultural Strategy sets out a plan for a scheme connected by artist concepts, with commissions dotted throughout the public realm that act as wayfinding, seating, play equipment and sculpture, while simultaneously framing viewpoints and routes for new pedestrian walkways.
The vision for Station Hill was devised to easily extend beyond the boundaries of the scheme. The initial investment of the Station Hill development can be seen as a catalyst for larger initiatives that can draw partnership funding or leverage the investment as a match gift to larger cultural and innovation funding opportunities.
