Breathing life back into the city’s empty spaces

Rob Morrison describes a unique project to develop urban arts and learning opportunities

Glasgow used to be the second city of the British Empire, an industrial powerhouse with a population of more than two million. This has now shrunk to around 600,000, a change clearly articulated by the vast number of vacant buildings and sites.

These spaces aren’t always negative. Flexible space has an intrinsic value in providing people with opportunities to define their own culture. This can be seen through artistic and creative communities occupying warehouses and programmes, such as Stalled Spaces, which encourage and support people to activate vacant sites.

We’ve been involved with developing projects over the last seven years, some temporary initiatives and others more established, such as The Glue Factory, an independent arts workspace in north Glasgow, and The Whisky Bond, a collaborative workspace in Dawson Road.

We’ve learnt a lot through these projects and believe that Glasgow has an opportunity to develop a unique and dynamic culture around how we occupy these spaces in sustainable ways.

This is about bridging the gap between consultation and construction, new development processes that create learning opportunities for artists, designers, architects and communities.

Test Unit is a summer school and public events programme that aims to address these issues. Now in its second year, it was developed after a year-long research project by Agile City, a platform to explore grassroots city development. When designing Test Unit we looked to the digital and tech industries for inspiration, which are often quicker to respond to audiences and circumstances.

One process we considered was the Google design sprint – which aims to take an idea from conception to prototype and get feedback from audiences in one intensive week. The key is that it is quick, cheap and gets genuine feedback.

Buildings and sites demand high capital investment and have long development cycles. We felt there was an opportunity to apply the quick-thinking sprint methodology to urban development, encouraging cross-disciplinary collaboration and the production of tangible prototypes in a live context.

Test Unit has been developed in relation to the Glasgow Canal, an area north of the city centre isolated by the construction of the M8 in the 1960s. Once a thriving industrial area, it has seen many years of social and economic decline. However, over the last eight years there has been a renewed energy from strategic partners and local organisations to unlock its potential as a unique place to live, work and visit.

Test Unit is just the beginning. We hope it informs the future and contributes to the ongoing dialogue of how to positively reimagine Glasgow’s industrial heritage. ● Rob Morrison is a co-director of Agile City, producers of Test Unit. Test Unit runs from 18–24 June at Civic House, Glasgow. The public can see the results during the Architecture Fringe from 1–23 July. www.agile-city. com/test-unit