Hastings Media Centre

Given the level of social, environmental, and financial investment in modern urban planning, it will come as no surprise to learn that in accepting the commission for Hastings’s brand-new media centre, BakerBrown was also being asked to hold a political hot potato.

It would be a much-publicised regeneration programme’s first new building, and one designed to stemmy a tech drain, the paucity of inspirational office and desk space forcing Hastings’s creative freelancers and small businesses further afield. The eyes of Hastings were upon us.

Working closely with over 65 stakeholders, we designed a eight-storey media hub that - as well as answering the needs and wants of its eventual tenants - stands as a perfect example of sustainable urban design. Made with low-energy techniques and materials, possessing the capacity to be used in multiple ways, and eminently re-usable, it’s a building designed to bend to a change-of-use future, and to waste nothing when that time comes.

A success story for these climate-sensitive sensitive times.