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Test Unit 2017 – Occupying The Post-industrial City

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2017

Like many cities, Glasgow has a wealth of vacant buildings and sites following industrial decline. As demand for space changes, we need to explore processes that are less capital intensive and quicker to respond to people and change. Test Unit 2017 was designed to explore these issues of Post-Industrial buildings through a live case study; Civic House and it’s adjacent site, Phoenix Nursery.

Civic House was acquired by Agile City to create a new learning space for progressive forms of city development and act as a hub for the Glasgow Canal area. Test Unit 2017 came at a unique point to shape it’s future and begin the process of introducing it as a public space.

We invited Jason Bruges Studio, A Feral Studio, BAXENDALE, Valentina Karga, Assemble & TAKTAL to lead units responding to issues of lighting, occupation, communication, alternative economies and urban tourism.

Alongside we ran a public programme – featuring talks, demos and workshops from:

dpr-barcalona, London Legacy Development Corporation, NDSM, National Theatre of Scotland, Le Grand Voisins, Assemble, RISOTTO, Recoat, Akiko Kobayashi, Glasgow Tool Library.

 

Film by Andy Brown Films

2017

Unit: Building Collaborative Economies

1. Money is a fiction 2. Dialogue is real 3. Maggots The Institute for Spontaneous Generation has been developed over the course of Test Unit to explore ways of building collaborative economies which question our current notion of wealth and value.

2017

Unit: Façades

The Brief: ‘How could we could re-imagine the possibilities for Phoenix Nursery? How could design interventions communicate these possibilities? How can a two dimensional objects inhabit a three dimensional space?

Unit: Spacial Occupation

Spatial Occupation Unit has been exploring the idea of the commons as a way of breaking down the false binary of public/private, and grappling with the possibility of growing more collective, self driven and co-owned models of occupying and developing urban space.

2017

Unit: Urban Bothy

The urban bothy brought together a diverse range of participants representing community arts, local activism, landscape architecture, art, graphic design and architecture to conceive, develop and deliver a small place of reflection that could facilitate an overnight stay.

2017

Unit: Responsive Lighting

The responsive lighting unit challenges during Test Unit was to prototype a lighting scheme which could animate the area and bring a playful approach to alleviating issues of safety at night, which unfortunately for the team coincided with the summer solstice.