Info
Meanwhile Space CIC are experts on meanwhile uses for empty spaces.
Info
Empty spaces are a blight to communities, a financial drain to owners and stimulate wider civic problems. To Meanwhile Space CIC they are an opportunity.
Meanwhile Space CIC are experts on meanwhile uses for empty spaces.
We have solutions, we can deliver them.
Meanwhile Space is a Community Interest Company that incorporated in July 2009. Our full biogs are here and we are:
Eddie Bridgeman, Director, eb@meanwhilespace.com, 078100 08526
Emily Berwyn, Director, emily@meanwhilespace.com, 078344 00240
Jessica Courtney Bennett, Project Manager, jcb@meanwhilespace.com, 078767 93418
We combine knowledge and experience to:
- - make the concept of meanwhile more mainstream
- - support people to access space that is less exclusive
- - advise the public and private sector to initiate schemes
- - directly deliver space animation projects
Meanwhile Space CIC is breaking new ground, generating a zeitgeist to re-imagine commercial use of property and the untapped opportunities that vacant spaces present.
Through word of mouth alone, the forum for people interested in innovative interim uses for empty property and sites has grown to 1000 members. Meanwhile use is becoming more mainstream as people share in cultural, environmental, economic, community and social benefits until spaces are reclaimed for more conventional longer-term commercial use.
Since our incorporation we have seen the delivery of the Meanwhile Project, consultancy advice for Luton, Craigavon and Hastings Borough Councils, a research project for the East of England Development Agency, activated shops with the Meanwhile Centre in Hoxton Street, Whitechapel Road, and Exmouth Market, the Seasider shop in Clerkenwell and supported Make-Do in their Somers Town shop.
Current and recent partners include
Architecture Foundation | Arts Council England | Asset Transfer Unit | Bureau of Silly Ideas | Camden Council | Communities & Local Government | Craigavon Borough Council | East of England Development Agency | East Sussex County Council | Hackney Borough Council | Hastings Borough Council | Locality (formerly Development Trusts Association) London Development Agency | Luton Borough Council | New Deal of the Mind | Renaisi | Retail Revival | Shoreditch Trust | Space Makers Agency | Twenty%Extra | UnLtd | Woodholmes Group | Workspace Group
Our work is varied, creative and innovative; from the projects we work on, places we visit and animate, and the people we work with. We love it, and believe we can make Meanwhile Space CIC a self-sufficient organization that supports people to use wasted spaces not only during the recession, but as part of every development process.
The Meanwhile Project
The CIC is the delivery arm of the Meanwhile Project (www.meanwhile.org.uk), led by the Development Trusts Association (now Locality) as part of the Advancing Assets programme, with support from Communities and Local Government in 2009-10.
The programme has fought to make it easier to bring wasted resources into interim productive use for the benefit of local communities via practical support as well as technical advice, manuals and common tools to help anyone who wants to do something positive in the meanwhile. The project provided direct financial support to 24 projects in 17 places across England, with the majority of projects in deprived urban areas. The No Time To Waste Report documents life in the fast lane of the project and the SQW report outlines the business case for meanwhile use.