Community Centre | TOKKO MyPlace | Luto | England | Astudio Architecture

The TOKKO MyPlace scheme is aimed primarily at bringing together 14-19 year olds in order to create a sense of community, stretch imaginations, extend ambitions and realise the potential of the youth community in Luton. The TOKKO Youth Steering Group have worked closely with us by attending benchmarking workshops, design workshops, site visits and other youth centre and building visits. The location of the TOKKO site is in the centre of Luton. The levels vary across the site in both directions and it has a limited footprint, both of these elements have influenced the design. It is intended that the new structure will be built within the footprint of the site, utilising the full area. This has driven the building to be arranged vertically, exploiting this to express different functions outlined in the brief. The design has addressed the idea of having open areas in the lower floors and more enclosed functions on the upper levels as described by the youth group as their ideal distribution within the different levels of the building. The TOKKO site is located within a conservation area of Luton. Meaning, the scale and architectural language of the building has been carefully considered in order to respect the character of this part of the town. The approach has been to “sculpt” the massing of the building to adapt its composition lines to those currently present in the immediate context as well as creating a dialogue in between the two very different scales the site faces: two stories plus sloping roof towards the north and six stories towards the south. The building massing has been conceived as two articulated boxes arranged to address both scales and create an interesting massing that could be identified as a distinctive building, yet considering its immediate context......more