An enclave of artists’ studios and apartments designed by Neat is the latest in a series of projects designed to reinvigorate the seaside town of Folkestone. Charles Holland assesses the project and a unique approach to culture-led regeneration.

Vertical larch cladding alternates between wide, flat boards and narrow strips expressed as shallow fins, giving the elevations a subtle rhythm.

Words
Charles Holland
Photos
Edmund Sumner and Matt Rowe

Arrivals at Folkestone Central train station are greeted by a cheerfully hand-painted slogan declaring that Folkestone is an Art School. Commissioned from the Hackney-based artist Bob and Roberta Smith as part of the 2017 Folkestone Art Triennial, the artwork suggests an ironic version of the kind of slogans often employed by town councils to attract tourists and visitors. It is also a recognition of Folkestone’s current status as home to an increasing number of artists and people involved in the creative industries. Folkestone used to have an art school but now it has the Triennial and the Creative Quarter, an area of town being transformed via a process of culture-led regeneration.

Like most seaside towns, Folkestone has suffered from unemployment and social deprivation following the decline of its tourist industry in the second half of the 20th century. Unlike most towns though, Folkestone has a uniquely generous and committed benefactor in the form of Roger de Haan, the heir to the SAGA Group fortune. Since the sale of SAGA for £1.3 billion in 2004, de Haan has been behind almost all the town’s significant development and the formation of its new identity via Creative Folkestone, an organisation that runs the Triennial along with Folkestone Book Festival and the Quarterhouse, a performing arts venue designed by Alison Brooks Architects in 2009.

The right of way at the rear of the houses has been expanded to create an informal domestic courtyard.

Creative Folkestone is behind the redevelopment of an area of town now known as the Creative Quarter. The development model for this is simple enough. The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust buys buildings (approximately 90 to date) as well as land which it then leases to Creative Folkestone on a 125-year lease for a peppercorn rent. Creative Folkestone then redevelops the properties and rents them to artists and creatives. Walking around the centre of town, it’s clear which buildings the organisation owns because they have been painted vibrant colours and often feature artworks commissioned as part
of the Triennial.

The focus of this regenerative work is around the Old High Street and Tontine Street, both of which begin near the harbour front and stretch inland. The Old High Street is populated by small galleries, shops and studios and winds up the hill to the town centre, while Tontine Street is home to both the Quarterhouse and the abstract, faceted geometry of F51, an indoor skate park designed by Holloway Studio.

Between Tontine Street and the Old High Street lies a tangle of back gardens, car parks and empty lots resulting historically from a combination of slum clearances, bomb damage and postwar planning.

As part of the 2014 Triennial, Muf Architecture/Art was invited to develop part of this leftover space into Payer’s Park, a loosely defined playground which has been skilfully integrated into the steep topography with play elements offering sometimes vertiginous ways of navigating the site.

The area surrounding Payer’s Park is bordered by a number of new developments, including the Quarterhouse, Glassworks – a refurbished industrial building offering creative co-working space – and 23-25 Tontine Street, a new enclave of artists’ Studios and apartments designed by Neat and completed in time for the current 2021 Triennial. This latest development includes the refurbishment of a building on Tontine Street and forms a new boundary to the south-east of Payer’s Park.

The layout of the site is complex, incorporating a right of way running from Tontine Street to the Old High Street and changes in level necessitating various retaining structures. Previously the right of way was more of a cul-de-sac and home to anti-social behaviour. The new development necessitated the demolition of a poor quality two-storey building containing flats that lined the route and contributed to its problematic character.

The new building comprises five houses and four commercial studio units while a further three flats and a single commercial unit are contained within the existing building. The new houses and studios are accommodated in a building expressed as a series of timber-clad sheds of subtly varying heights. The overall impression is of a casually arranged group but the internal planning is tight and economical.

The buildings are essentially two-stories high but they are tall enough to contain small, loft-like mezzanine levels which can be used as a home study or an extra sleeping space, offering a sense of spaciousness to what are essentially small one to three bed apartments ranging in size from 50 to 98 square metres. The buildings are constructed using a timber frame. This relatively lightweight form of construction allows for a shallow, raft foundation avoiding deep excavation, important because of the combination of land contamination and complex utility routes below the site. It also cuts down on unnecessary amounts of concrete and other carbon intensive forms of construction.

The palette of materials is simple and pretty robust. Externally the timber frame is clad in vertical strips of larch cladding left either natural or stained black. The cladding alternates between wide, flat boards and narrow strips expressed as shallow fins. The alternating character of these strips gives the elevations a subtle rhythm. It is a tight site and sometimes the thin strips of larch continue over the windows to give them an increased measure of privacy.

The facade also incorporates an artwork, Shimmera, commissioned as part of this year’s Triennial by Jacqueline Poncelet. It consists of various colours of shimmer discs – small, circular metal sequins – that flutter in the breeze. Like all the Triennial artworks, it will become a permanent feature if it proves robust and popular enough.

The site issues of overlooking have been cleverly dealt with and the right of way at the rear of the houses has been expanded to create an informal domestic courtyard. The hope is that this space will become populated with plants, people and the spill-out of domestic life over time. There is an awkward slither of space where an existing retaining wall slices the site off at a sharp diagonal but for the most part the complexities of the site have been carefully resolved. The external courtyard feels like it could well work as planned and the materials have been carefully detailed.

Internally the units are simple, employing a mixture of painted plasterboard and fair-faced OSB. This material is also used to form window boards and architraves, giving all the spaces the quality of a domesticated workshop or a refined shed, which reflects their use as places where people might make work as well as live. The studios contain a kitchenette, WC and storeroom as well as a space for making. The site configuration means they are not all overly endowed with natural light but the spaces feel robust and useful.

23-55 Tontine Street completes a sequence of development which also includes 69 The Old High Street, a new business innovation centre also designed by Neat and finished earlier this year.

Creative Folkestone’s deputy chief executive Fiona Kingsman says the new units have already been let and there appears to be plenty of demand. Folkestone has not yet reached artistic saturation point. However, in the immediate future the focus of Creative Folkestone will shift to external spaces around the new building including enhanced planting to Payer’s Park.

Creative-led urban regeneration has it critics. It can lead to a hipster form of gentrification with locals priced out by wealthier arrivals and an overabundance of shops selling bunting and cup cakes. But Folkestone is a unique case, a town with a long-term strategy based on the role of art and culture in urban life. Instead of a shiny new, contemporary art gallery, it has the Triennial which embeds art within the urban realm in ways that are surprising and successful. The town’s dependence on the largesse of one individual might make some feel uncomfortable but the intention is to kick-start a revival of its fortunes that can grow exponentially, and the method of buying up redundant buildings and turning them into usable studio and living space is hard to fault. The development at 23-25 Tontine Street extends this process, helping to stitch together a formerly broken part of the town with a careful combination of art and architecture.

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