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A ground-up capital development

Dorian Braun, Deep Listening Workshop, Lumsden Weekender (2018). Photo: Erika Stevenson

To coincide with our 40th anniversary celebrations this year, we are excited to announce ambitions for a major capital development project to upgrade our workshop spaces and site in collaboration with Collective Architecture.

In line with SSW’s ethos and values, the development will see a ‘ground-up’ approach at its heart, utilising local materials, skills, and knowledges. It will foreground function and environmental sustainability throughout the design and construction.

SSW Director Sam Trotman says, “SSW started with the desire, vision and hard work of artist and educator Fred Bushe to create a space that commoned tools and skills for other artists to live, make and learn together. Like everything at SSW the development of the new workshops will be rooted in these founding beliefs. We will work with artists, technicians and users to ensure these workshops continue to be places where relationships are made, material experimentation is foregrounded and new worlds are conjured into being. We are pleased to have appointed Collective Architecture to join us on the journey, their values around sustainability and community make them the ideal partner to work with us, our collaborators and communities to reimagine these spaces at SSW.”

Collective Architecture works across the UK from their bases in Edinburgh and Glasgow, often working with artists to realise projects which foreground community and sustainability.

Ewan Imrie of Collective Architecture says: “Collective Architecture are delighted to be working collaboratively with SSW to develop this project. We are very much looking forward to learning about the technical processes and creative explorations that occur at SSW and helping to shape a new future for the site that enhances its potential while preserving the characteristics that make it so special.”

In 2018, together with consultants Bonnar Keenlyside, we carried out a review of our existing facilities, assessing the condition of the buildings and their suitability for current and future activities, users and audiences. The resulting feasibility study concluded that there was a need to upgrade the site so that the facilities could be considered fit for purpose and artists, and meet organisational requirements and ambitions.

This phase of capital development will be overseen by Capital Project Manager, Jane Robertson, until we achieve RIBA stage 3 (planning approval). More news will be released soon…

Read an update on our Capital Development project

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