Active Communities in Stalled Spaces

Choose any district in or around Glasgow and it won’t take you very long to find a stalled space: a gap site where a building has been demolished, or one earmarked for development which hasn’t yet begun. Overgrown with bushes, scattered with litter, it’s a space going nowhere fast, acting as a burden on the community it finds itself in.

Now, however, across the city, these vacant spaces are finding a new lease of life as community gardens, forest schools and art exhibition spaces, thanks to the Stalled Spaces initiative. Since 2009, the municipality subsidises associations and other collectives that maintain urban wastelands, vacant and abounded areas, by developing activities approved by it, until the investment opportunities resume and find a better use for these public spaces. A temporal solution to an otherwise vacant, empty plot of land. Initially led by the success of the Glasgow City Council model, the initiative expanded to a national scale and was managed by Architecture and Design Scotland and supported by Commonwealth Games Legacy funding. The initiative aimed to encourage and support communities to bring stalled spaces or derelict and vacant land back into temporary use. The brief called for inspiring ideas that were to benefit local people and successful outcomes can be found across the city.

1)The Woodlands Community Garden,

2)Greyfairs Garden, Merchant City

3)The Concrete Garden, Possilpark

4)The Back Garden, Possilpark

5)Pacitti Garden, Kinning Park

 

Key Themes: Community, Lost Places