The design seeks to forge links between the arts and commerce, and between the high street and recently completed nearby shopping centre. In so doing the Arts & Civic Centre should tap into the everyday life of Goole and become an integral part of its culture and identity.

The new Arts & Civic Centre, Goole will integrate a 173-person auditorium, workshop, foyer and café, council chamber / community room and offices into a compact and flexible building. This intensity of use should result in a 'buzz' and a greater awareness of associated activities.

Due to budgetary constraints and for sustainable reasons, the scheme reuses the foundations and steel portal frame of the existing 1980s market building creating an external performance space and covered areas for market stalls. A central section of the roof is raised to accommodate cinema projection, giving the building a greater civic presence and signifying the entrance.

The addition of a brim (canopy) – as in a hat – and a veranda below, along the street, will provide shelter, and will also provide a space for traders to pitch stalls. Above, the building is reclad in profiled steel. Below, the ‘internal’ building, a new timber frame structure, reveals itself clad in Douglas fir. Here the underside of the brim is lined in polished gold stainless steel to reflect the warmth and richness of the timber. But when seen in perspective, the combination of the pitch of the brim, the addition of the crossing and the shift in the original geometry will produce an optical illusion that will transform this simple building, the geometry of which is derived directly from the site, into a very particular sculptural form. It is vital that the new use transcends its origins.

Buschow Henley are working in conjunction with theatre consultant Theatre Plan, structural engineer Techniker, environmental engineer Rybkonsult, acoustic consultant Sharps Redmore, project manager Turner & Townsend and cost consultant Bernard Williams Associates. The project was granted detailed planning consent in 2007.