Community Engagement Consultant: Coventry University

I'm doing a piece of community engagement research on behalf of Coventry University from February 2024 onwards. Previously, planned were announced for the ACE & British Council collections to relocate to the city, within the old IKEA building, and now the University is in on the act. Rachel Farrer from the project board has invited me to undertake this work. 

The university is planning to create a cultural hub on the top two floors, with a range of facilities benefiting students, visitors, the city's creative community and the wider public.

The university’s two floors of the proposed City Centre Cultural Gateway (IKEA building) would house a gallery, café, library and exhibition space, dance studio, conference area, artists’ studios, post-production filming facilities and a shop where students can sell their artwork. It would also include teaching and research spaces.

Many of these facilities would be open to the public or available to hire and will serve as a lasting legacy of Coventry’s 2021 year as UK City of Culture. It would also add to the university’s recent investment in cutting edge arts facilities at its new Delia Derbyshire building, in Cox Street.

It would provide a new home for Coventry University’s FabLab, which supports local people and businesses to learn new skills, and could lead to a range of new arts and heritage courses, including short courses, being offered. If the plans are approved the hub (working name and still very much subject to agreement) could open in 2026 and would see the university joining Arts Council England and the British Council in the building. It is hoped the site will become a busy centre for art which will support UK and international audiences with exhibition loans.

I’ll be asking the creative community based in Coventry some questions about it in the near future.

Got something to say or would like tell me what you think? Email me on hello@amydaltonhardy.co.uk