Onkar Kular. Stanley Picker Creators Academy

About

Over recent years we have seen a global rise in new types of creative working environments. These range anywhere between co-working and creative office hub spaces as seen in Wework and Second Home, to large-scale workplaces of media organisations such as Google and Facebook.

Terms like Collaboration, Sharing and Community are commonly found in the branding and mission statements of organisations that provide or facilitate such working spaces. These reflect a certain ethos, generally focused around how they support and incubate individuals to work more efficiently, create more professional content, and ultimately access more lucrative opportunities and financial capital.

Collaboration, Sharing and Community, are the working values that are reconsidered as part of the SPCA. Through the appropriation of the spatial, programmatic and linguistic features commonly found in creative working environments the SPCA examines how these terms are used by organisations to incubate creativity and suggest possible ways that they can be refocused and repurposed in order to create alternative forms of capital. Designed with architect Inigo Minns, the SPCA includes different zones for work and the production of media such as fast Internet connection, booths for meeting and conference calling, brainstorming stations together with areas for relaxing and socialising. Operating an ‘Open Use’ policy the SPCA offers a free working space open daily and available for use over a period of four weeks for Kingston University staff, students, as well as the general public.

Alongside the many spatial features creative work organisations often run events programs for the purpose of general inspiration and staff development. The SPCA reflects this with its own alternative curated events programme to host a series of public activities, including talks, yoga classes, seminars, and networking opportunities. Additionally the SPCA will run a number of workshops for Kingston University Students, staff and invited local groups, which will explore the core values through the production of different types of media.

Project Architect: Inigo Minns