2hD: The Sky Vault Landmark

The Sky Vault Landmark

Creating powerful visualisations of what the Sky Vault landmark could be was key to inspiring the East Midlanders and the Sky Vault team

As the project developed and momentum gathered around it, the design itself evolved to embrace the opportunities of its new site in the National Forest

We created a physical model of the landmark as part of a consultation exhibition that we toured around the East Midlands

Sky Vault exhibition on tour around the East Midlands

What does it mean to celebrate the diversity of East Midlands? We toured the region with a small Sky Vault exhibition to spark the debate

Winning by popular vote the Landmark for the East Midlands competition in 2001, Sky Vault was designed to embody the varied but collective identity of the East Midlands as we see it, its forward-thinking attitude, and to open people’s eyes to the region. To symbolise this, the non-hierarchical cablenet relies for its structural integrity on every steel member and on all the connections between them. The cables stand metaphorically for the various parts, strands and places in the region whilst the illuminated joints celebrate their connections in an open sculpture welcoming all.

On a project management and entrepreneurial level, Sky Vault has given us the great experience of creating its path since the competition, of bringing together professionals and individual experts into its Board and of actively communicating with the general public – through exhibitions, surveys, public meetings and the Sky Vault website, as well as with public bodies –- the Highway Authority, Local Authorities, EMDA, the National Forest etc.

All these interactions have informed our ongoing enquiry –- throughout Sky Vault’s development –- into the notion of ‘regional identity’ and the way it manifests itself in the East Midlands. As shown by European research, we believe that regional identity is real and important to people and that landmarks are crucial in making this manifest; but also, that in the East Midlands, regional identity is still, at least in part, a project needing supporting and enabling.

To this end, our design work has been concerned not only with the generic and later, site-specific detail design of the landmark, but also with a visitor centre where people could record their memories and aspirations and learn about the region, with their visitor experience, with the design of a bridge linking the two sides of the landmark and more recently, with ideas for interventions throughout the region which could help connect people, as well as people to places and to the East Midlands Landmark, Sky Vault.

This project first brought 2hD’s three founding directors together.