The Meeting Point
In this week’s blog, GCRE Chair Dr Debra Williams looks at how the physical landscape around the Global Centre of Rail Excellence can inspire the innovation that goes on inside.
In his 2018 book, ‘Stories of Solidarity’, the late historian Dr Hywel Francis said of the area where he grew up:
‘In many ways, Onllwyn has always been at a crossroads. The Romans, as ever, recognised this by locating a strategic fort at neighbouring Coelbren… More recently in the last century this was the cultural meeting point of the rural, western, Welsh-speaking anthracite coalfield with its tradition of hunting, shooting, fishing, poaching and farming miners and the largely English-speaking more urban steam coalfield to the east. The booming anthracite collieries of the locality were in every sense a microcosm of the whole coalfield in the inter-war years as they attracted their workforce from every corner of South Wales, and beyond. The distinctive moorland rather than valley landscape, accentuated by what local poet Duncan Bush calls the Montana backdrop of the Cribbarth and the Brecon Beacons gives the impression of being both worldly and somewhat set apart.’
That sense of Onllwyn and the communities that sit nearby as a meeting point – a meeting point of industry; culture and human interaction is a fascinating one. The identity and the richness of the villages in the area has been fundamentally shaped by the individuals drawn to it by work, resources and opportunity.
Its interesting because the Global Centre of Rail Excellence being constructed across those same communities will itself be another meeting point. A place where world class researchers and innovators from around the world will work with skilled technicians and engineers locally to test, develop and refine the very latest in cutting edge rail technology.
Onllwyn, where the GCRE headquarters will be located – the ‘shop front’ of the new facility – will once again be home to a world-leading industry that draws people of many different backgrounds and cultures to it. Once again, in the pursuit of engineering excellence and opportunity.
Its striking how as the Global Centre of Rail Excellence idea develops, it’s those continuities with the past that become more apparent, not the differences. The Montana moorland that backgrounds the area has for more than two centuries been a place of world class innovation and craft. GCRE is, in many ways, just the next chapter of that story – once again the crossroads for industrial creativity.
And its that richness of history that GCRE wants to tap into in developing its new facility. That legacy is not only a story we want to tell on site, but also one that we want to weave into the very design and shape of the new facility we are building in the area.
How do we create engaging spaces for collaboration on site; how do we bring the best out of the rich seam of talent living locally; how do we develop GCRE as a place where ideas and creativity can flourish; how can we ensure it’s a development is part of – not separate from – the communities in which it sits?
One way we’ve chosen to do that is to put careful thought and planning into the physical design and layout of the facility itself. We’ve been working with award-winning architects Fifth Studio to develop a ‘Masterplan’ for the site so that we are inspired by that important legacy of the past to create modern and engaging spaces where we can work with rail customers to test and research the next generation of rail and transport technologies.
We will publish the Masterplan in the coming months, but we took the first ideas from it out to consultation locally as part of our recent community roadshow. It was great to get feedback on the plan – to show that we really did mean what we said that we didn’t want GCRE to be a shiny building on a hill, locked away from the communities that sat near to it. It needs to be part, and of, the villages that host it.
Indeed, those communities; the shape of the landscape and the make-up of the places within it – that meeting point – is something that we want to thread into the very identity of GCRE. That influence of the land around the site is something that we think can and should inspire the people who work there.
Part of what we’ve tried to do in thinking about that design is make it both a great place for those working at the site as well as those visiting from outside. Some of our clients will spend up to a couple of months or more away from home, intensively testing and researching new products at GCRE. We want it to be an inspiring place for them to work – and, boy, the landscape nearby delivers.
We recently began work with the very talented Matthew Nichol, who has a huge amount of experience in charting the progress of large infrastructure developments – and we’ll use some of the amazing images he has started to collect as we document progress with the GCRE construction over the coming months.
I have a feeling that the ‘meeting point’ narrative written about by Hywel Francis will be one also picked up through Matthew’s beautiful images, too.
