Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot | The transit square that found a community

The project

In 2015, Didcot became the first existing town in the UK to be awarded Garden Town status – a programme focused on greening established infrastructure rather than starting from scratch. That vision is now taking root.

Outside Cornerstone Arts Centre on Station Road, a modular arrangement of planters has transformed a transit courtyard into a place people genuinely want to stay.

Cornerstone is a community venue with exceptional pedigree. Designed by Ellis Williams Architects – the practice behind the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead – this RIBA award-nominated building has been a cultural anchor for Didcot since 2008, drawing audiences to its auditorium, galleries and studios. The courtyard fronting it held equal promise – and so the Council directed the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and developer contributions into the public realm to extend that cultural energy outdoors.

The brief was refreshingly clear: bring plant life to the street, attract pollinators, and create a space that would persuade visitors and passersby to sit, enjoy their surroundings, and perhaps strike up a conversation – knitting nature back into the urban fabric in the process.

The project also aligns with the adopted Didcot Green Infrastructure Strategy 2024, providing a framework for expanding green corridors across the town.

How we helped

The configuration was deliberate. Planters were positioned to place people at the heart of the greenery, creating gathering points where the courtyard feels like a garden rather than a street. Integrated seating and armrests invite visitors to pause within the planting – the effect softening the urban space while maintaining all the durability daily use demands.

We supplied FERN planters with Fordham timber seating and armrests, each finished in triple-process coating for colour vibrancy and weather protection that lasts decades. The FERN planters’ considered construction provides generous planting capacity, designed to support a rich, evolving green presence throughout the seasons.

The Fordham bench – its seating crafted from hardwood timber reclaimed from British ships and dockyards – brings a natural, resilient beauty to the design and becomes stronger with age. We honour this endurance by planting four trees with Ecologi for every Fordham product sold.

On Friday 4th April, volunteers from Didcot TRAIN visited the arts centre to plant up the new installations, establishing what will become an evolving green presence that supports the town’s adopted Green Infrastructure Strategy.

The outcome: Cornerstone Arts Centre extends its welcome outdoors

The planters were barely established before people began to use the space differently – pausing, sitting, staying. Phil Barker, Head of Communities for South Oxfordshire District Council, put it well:

“It was clear to see the area near Cornerstone was in need of some plant life. Not only do these planters bring life to the street, they attract pollinators such as bees which we know are vital for our ecosystem. And by making the courtyard more attractive, visitors will be more tempted to sit, enjoy their surroundings and interact with others, helping to create a stronger community.”

Acting as living infrastructure, these planters bring an immediate pulse of biodiversity to the street, create visual interest throughout the seasons, and establish gathering points where conversations can naturally spark.

Looking ahead – seasons of growth

This is a considered intervention with significant potential. As the planting matures and establishes itself, the courtyard will become increasingly attractive to both people and pollinators. Hardy perennials help create a sustainable, biodiverse gathering space which we trust will develop into an outdoor room for the arts centre – somewhere that extends Cornerstone’s cultural reach ever further into the public realm.

For Didcot, a town transforming itself from its industrial past into the UK’s first existing Garden Town, these planters represent something equally valuable: tangible evidence to planners that greening doesn’t require grand gestures. Sometimes the answer is the right furniture in the right place, creating quiet invitations for people to pause, sit, and reconnect with the life all around them.

The furniture and planting unite to suggest: this space is for you, please enjoy it.

Interested in creating public realm spaces that serve both people and nature? Our design team always welcomes a conversation about how thoughtful furniture choices can create places that communities genuinely value.