Corby Cube

Corby as a town has been in economic decline for a number of years, since the main industry of the steelworks closed in the 1980’s. Hawkins\Brown Architects won an international design competition with an ambitious vision for the project, to kickstart regeneration in a building with community at its heart.

The brief asked for two separate buildings, but Hawkins\Brown intelligently designed one single building which integrated all the desired activities together. These diverse functions include council offices, public services, a theatre, restaurants, and a public library – all accessed via a spiraling ramp or promenade which ties the whole building together. We would call it a town hall for the 21st century.

A deceptively simple form from the outside, but highly complex and intelligent on the inside, Hawkins\Brown commissioned us to make a film which would celebrate and communicate both the spirit and the detail of the project to a wide target audience.

We needed to tell the story of the project, through interviews with key players, but also we wanted to unwrap and deconstruct the building to simplify its understanding and inform the viewer.

One approach we used here was to combine green screen CGI with an interview with the project architect, to bring the scheme to live in a simple, informative, but playful manner.

Internally, the building is all about circulation and movement, through the ramp – so we directed camera moves to echo this by always being in motion through a series of trucks, dollies, zooms and time-lapse shots.

Our ambitious final closing shot combined a moving time-lapse camera from day to dusk, to celebrate the changing character of the building as it changes from a reflective to a transparent cube.

We hope that we’ve captured the spirit and the details of the project, of this forward thinking and striking addition to Corby town centre.