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Derby City Council was keen to establish a new future for Derby Silk Mill, which required substantial refurbishment after a period of decline.

Project overview

A new charitable trust, Derby Museums, was formed to manage the city’s museums and take forward a plan for the building, and work began to reimagine what the museum might be about, using a human-centred design process. Consultation was more than a one-off input into thinking – it has been amplified to include co-production; the refurbished museum is being made with the consultees. This includes the public, stakeholders from the local authority and business and manufacturing community, education and cultural partners, and volunteers.

Facts and figures 

Type of project: Refurbishment of a museum, a UNESCO world heritage site
Capital cost: £18+ million
Funding:  £2.7 million from Arts Council England ; £10.7 million from National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF); £3.7 million from D2N2 (the Local Enterprise Partnership); Balance of funding from Derby City Council and a range of Trusts, Foundations and Businesses and volunteer time.
The project team: Derby Museums (Client); Bauman Lyon Architects (Architect); Speller Metcalfe (Main contractor); GCA (UK) Ltd (Structural engineer); The Creative Core Ltd (formerly Leach Studio)(Exhibition designers and build); Derry Building Services (Mechanical and engineering); Preston Barber (Mechanical and engineering consultant)

Project timetable 

2013: Opening of ground floor ‘prototype’ in 
2015: Planning for full project commenced in 
2017: Funding secured in 
2018: Construction started in February 
2021: Opening planned for Spring

Image inside Derby Museum of the layout with people inside looking at the displays
Photo by Museum of Making - The Civic Hall - artists impression credit The Creative Core
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Project management 

Alliance, an integrated project team, created through the IPI contract which means the construction team (client, consultants, main contractor and sub-contractors) are all partners in a partnership contract, taking joint responsibility for the successful delivery of the project. 

The capital works

The work involved the redevelopment of the Silk Mill, a collection of historic interlinked factory buildings within a UNESCO world heritage site converted into a museum. The redevelopment included: a strip out and renovation of all four floors of the buildings; creating a new triple height atrium; making the museum fully accessible to the public; and allowing access to the entire collection of objects. Volunteers are working with the design team on the fit-out of the galleries and will be making the fit-out installation on site in a workshop created as part of the overall project.

Going beyond consultation to achieve co-production

Derby City Council mothballed the Silk Mill, known as the Derby Industrial Museum, in 2011 in response to falling visitor numbers and no clear way forward for the building following a failed capital funding application. The Silk Mill was one of the three museums within a group which was then transferred out of direct local authority control into a new trust, Derby Museums. Derby Museums was given a brief to redevelop Derby Silk Mill as an inspirational museum, but it took the opportunity for a more open exploration of what a refurbished Silk Mill museum could be and how it might meet specific local challenges such as poor social mobility, low educational attainment and local skills not meeting the needs of employers, particularly in the manufacturing sector. 

The organisation decided on an approach to the capital project that placed participation at its heart and was deliberately exploratory. Hannah Fox, now director of projects and programmes, was employed with an initial six-month brief to identify what could be possible and what it might look like. Hannah introduced a human-centred design process that involves designing around people’s needs in a highly collaborative fashion. This provided a structural framework but didn’t presuppose a design. Each successive stage in the process is iterative and begins with a set of open questions that are genuinely explored together, and that lead to ideas being refined and reshaped. The approach they adopted goes beyond simply consulting (ie asking for feedback and ideas), so that local people are actively involved in the designing and making as co-producers.

As a result of the growing understanding of the needs and desires of communities and stakeholders, Derby Museums secured seed funding to develop the project further. The Re:Make project (2013-14) started with listening to the community, to volunteers and museum visitors, to stakeholders and funders, to schools and education partners, and to businesses. This phase was critical. Armed with this knowledge and burgeoning relationships, they asked, ‘How might we use the making of a museum as an opportunity to experiment, involve and enrich?’ They subsequently built a workshop on the site and invited local people, with some expert help, to create a prototype museum on the first floor, right down to the cafe furniture, exhibition cases and displays. The listening, observation and practice of this phase enabled a clear concept to emerge by 2015 – the Museum of Making – as well as the evidence base to secure funding for the full renovation and refit project. 

Co-production volunteers are now working with architects, makers-in-residence and an in-house team to design and build the new museum. The website explains, ‘We are offering volunteer co-production opportunities that will excite and challenge everyone, developing our collective skills and enabling us to make the Museum of Making together.’ Inspired by the Maker movement, there are other activities to continue drawing in the people of Derby: a ‘Makory’ (a mini museum on wheels which tours the area, offering a preview and carrying stories, objects and facilities to make things), and Derby hosts an annual Maker Faire, gathering people who enjoy making things to display and share their skills.

Visual concept of Derbys Museum of making
Photo by Museum of Making - The Assemblage - credit The Creative Core
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A collaborative procurement route

A further key decision was in relation to the procurement method; they chose to pursue an innovative Integrated Project Insurance (IPI) model, an approach with collaboration at its heart. The whole project team, including Derby Museum as the client, have formed an alliance to work collaboratively under a single contract and insurance. They were therefore incentivised to deliver the project within timescale and budget through a gain/pain share linked to common rather than individual performance. The alliance is integrated into Derby Museums’ existing governance structures to ensure regular reporting processes and allow for key decision-making at Derby Museums’ board of trustees. 
Under the IPI, the team is selected on the basis of ‘best for project’ skills, including the ability to add value. In addition to the standard OJEU process, Derby Museums held behaviour workshops as part of the selection process, taking the view that relationships were absolutely critical. Hannah describes these as ‘enlightening and fascinating’.

Reflections and learning

The team believes that their approach is creating the right building for Derby that will be fit for purpose and flexible enough to accommodate changing needs. In fact, they feel they are already delivering the Museum of Making, in the making process itself, so the opening milestone seems less daunting. Their way of working has brought extraordinary consistency within the team, including the volunteer base that has included over 1,000 people to date, as people feel personally and deeply connected and committed to the project. The community have become strong advocates on the museum’s behalf (for example in relation to funding decisions) and there is a shared sense of the future. The team is now collaborating with 30 other local organisations to develop an opening programme to showcase Derby’s 300-year record of making for the region and the city. Running throughout 2021, the site’s tricentenary year, this programme will include the full opening of the new Museum of Making. 

Hannah acknowledges that some people find the approach risky: ‘Some say that it might not work, funding might go into it and may not come off.  But I think the risk is greater in not doing it. If you’re not prepared to iterate and bring people in, you’ll potentially just create an expensive passion project, not something that is needed.’
Over 1,000 people have been involved so far in the project. Hannah Fox admits that she never envisaged the scale and impact of the approach when setting out. Her advice for others is to take the work in stages, using the process framework to let ideas grow according to the specific needs of your situation: ‘There’s likely to be an opportunity to build on and amplify any consultation and co-production already happening in your organisation, however modest and even if it is not labelled as such. Prototyping is king!’ she says. She encourages radical collaborations and allowing oneself to be challenged. ‘It’s really tough, you’ve got to hold your nerve. You need to feel that people are supporting, defending and advocating for your decisions, so getting the right team and creating a culture in which it is ok to try something new is key’. 

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