Foundations for Growth: Creative Space Infrastructure in Dundee

Foundations for Growth: Creative Space Infrastructure in Dundee June 2025

A lack of space is limiting the growth of Dundee’s creative sector.

The Challenge and the Opportunity Access to creative space to make and share work, collaborate and experiment remains a key barrier for creative practitioners and businesses to establish, sustain and grow their business in Dundee.

Let’s change that.

Dundee’s Creative Economy drives innovation and inclusive growth. The Creative & Digital Industries are Dundee’s leading sector by total turnover* — employing 3,530 people and 240 registered creative businesses.

However these statistics do not fully capture the true numbers of creative jobs in the broader Creative Economy**, the creative students who bring fresh energy and innovation to the city, or all those who are self employed, which is a defining characteristic of the Creative Industries.

With exceptional creative density for a small city, Dundee has a vibrant and concentrated creative sector which is a major contributor to the city’s talent base, economic resilience and social fabric. Dundee continues to position itself as a forward-looking, enterprising city. Supporting and sustaining our creative infrastructure is essential to that effort. Creative businesses, freelancers and cultural organisations are crucial to the city’s future — from cultural life and community development, to job creation and investment attraction.

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There are a number of vital, well-used creative spaces across the city, however Creative Dundee’s Creative Space Survey 2023 showed that:

96% 86% 59% have struggled to find space in the city.

* SG Growth Industry Statistics ** Jobs in the three academic institutions are not counted in official Creative Industries SIC statistics. Creative Dundee research in May 2025 using data supplied suggests there are circa 3,963 creative and digital subject students across the three further and higher education institutions. 52% of Creative Industries businesses have 0 employees which are not included.

needed an alternative space to work

have considered leaving Dundee due to the lack of creative space.

There is a desperate need for all types of creative space in Dundee, space which facilitates both the creation and sharing of work. Over the last ten years, a series of closures among workspaces, studios, exhibition spaces and venues alongside significant rent increases by the city’s only creative studio facility has forced many to find alternative space, adapt their business model, downsize, or even leave the city.

Securing further long-term spaces would enable the expanding creative sector to grow into its true size. With space secure, the creative sector can do what it does best: take risks. The success of these ventures powers the Creative Economy in Dundee.

Securing space to allow for that experimentation is the path to maintaining Dundee’s reputation as a creative and vibrant city.

Increased space would provide new opportunities for all Dundonians to experience creativity and access the space and tools they need to make creative projects happen. Building robust and dynamic creative spaces is a demonstration of community wealth building in action.

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Creative Spaces Create Inclusive Growth Dundee is recognised internationally for its creativity and cultural strength, but its potential is constrained by a lack of accessible, secure and sustainable space.

Ensuring critical infrastructure is in place to enable the sector to sustain and grow are essential.

Recent international studies* have explored the impacts of cultural space on property value, community cohesion, public safety, and neighbourhood vitality.

Research has shown that there are significant and demonstrable benefits from the presence of cultural spaces, that these improvements are quantifiable, and that creative spaces put tangible value back into local ecosystems.

Between February 2023 and February 2024, Creative Dundee actively engaged more than 350 creative practitioners, businesses, grassroots organisations and existing creative spaces to develop a collective vision for a network of creative spaces across Dundee.

• Longer opening hours supporting an evening economy.

In October 2023 they launched Hapworks, a project which advocates for creative space in the city, working with partners to establish new long-term spaces, whilst amplifying Dundee’s existing network of creative spaces.

• Increase in pavement cafes and outdoor seating.

Hapworks strategic aims include:

Economic and Social Impacts of Creative Space: • Increased occupancy and property values.

• Increased footfall with a higher density of walkable amenities.

• Improved public safety due to areas being busy throughout the day.

• Community wealth building from the provision of third spaces.

• Better health and educational outcomes for residents.

• Promotion of the city through increased publicity, social media and tourism.

* The Naturally Occurring Benefits of Cultural Space, published by the City of Seatle, 2017 Culture and Social Wellbeing in New York City, published by the Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) at the University of Pennsylvania, 2018

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• • • • • • • •

Establish long-term space for the creative sector.

Make creativity visible and demonstrate its value.

Create space for new ideas and collaborations.

Build community.

Boost local economies.

Create a distinct sense of place.

Improve opportunities for local people.

Enhance quality of life.

Through events, surveys and a Creative Spaces Working Group, Hapworks has worked to better understand what space is needed, and what barriers exist to accessing creative space.

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Case Study: Hapworks_00 Outcomes: • Activated an Empty Retail Unit: Hosted over 85 events, welcoming more than 1,400 people to the space for workshops, film screenings, performances, talks, game jams and exhibitions.

• Supported Freelancers and Micro-businesses: 57 coworking days resulted in 361 coworking visits, helping to build networks, foster collaborations and reduce isolation.

The first pilot, Hapworks_00, transformed a vacant city centre retail unit at 7 Castle Street, owned by Dundee City Council and empty for 7 years, into a vibrant creative coworking and event space from February 2024 to June 2025.

Designed as a testbed for future permanent creative space, the project trialed different models — including Pay What You Can coworking passes — and hosted exhibitions, gigs, game jams, screenings, and a series of Hapworks Takeovers, many of which would not have happened elsewhere due to lack of available venues.

Hapworks_00 was supported by Dundee City Council through their Vacant to Vibrant initiative and Creative Scotland’s Recovery Fund for Cultural Organisations.

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• Demonstrated Demand: Confirmed the significant gap in affordable creative space for individuals, startups, and groups to make and share their work.

Photo by StudioQN

• Built New Creative Infrastructure: 5 Hapworks Takeovers supported groups to temporarily occupy a city centre unit providing space for development and experimentation, and platforming 65 creative practitioners.

• Gathered Evidence for Long-Term Space: Generated critical data on pricing, access needs, space usage patterns, and community demand to inform future long-term spaces.

• Mobilised Resources: Created staffing opportunities and invested over £11,000 into local creative businesses to animate and deliver the project.

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Case Study: Hapworks_00 Economic and Social Impacts: • Alternative uses for Vacant Space: Demonstrated the role that creative space and the creative sector could play in city centre regeneration.

• Place Activation: Creative programming boosted footfall in the city centre, supporting nearby businesses and the evening economy, improving street vibrancy and perception of safety.

• Community Wealth Building: Provided a visible city centre platform for creative practitioners and micro-businesses to share their work and foster new collaborations.

This temporary space was only able to do so much. A series of short leases limited longer-term planning and partnership opportunities to achieve long term sustainability, and varied access needs further highlighted the importance of inclusive design and longer-term stability. The unit’s small floor plan, combined with the lack of private spaces, constrained the ability to have anchor tenants — limiting consistent income and requiring additional investment to support the running of the space long-term.

• Policy Learning: Generated practical insights for future council, property, and creative sector partnerships around space reuse and cultural infrastructure.

• Cross-sector Collaborations: Progressed conversations with the property sector about long-term space.

• Economic Multiplier Effect: Grants and income translated into public-facing activity, creating value for freelancers, micro-enterprises, nearby businesses, and civic vibrancy.

• Social Impact: Enabled community-led events and gatherings, providing much needed third space and improving social cohesion and wellbeing.

• Cultural Visibility: Strengthened Dundee’s image as a vibrant, creative, and inclusive city — promoting it as a destination for culture and innovation.

• Collective Knowledge: A focal point for the wider Hapworks project, bringing together long-term creative space stakeholders to host creative space conversations which advocate and educate.

Despite this, Hapworks_00 reimagined an empty unit through cultural use — offering a scalable model for creative-led regeneration and informing the next steps of the wider Hapworks project.

Photo by StudioQN 7

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1. Vacant Space Activation

Creative Space Demonstrators The vision for creative spaces in Dundee to date has been generated through a deeply community-rooted process of engagement. We have also built on the concepts tested through Creative Dundee’s pilot project Hapworks_00.

This report suggests three next-step demonstrators Dundee could take forward to build on the work completed to date, whilst continuing to reflect and achieve the overarching vision for more creative space in the city: 9

Empty retail spaces can be a blight to thriving high streets and communities, often contributing to a sense of failure that can spread up and down a street. As a continuation of the experimental space Creative Dundee led, external funding would support creative communities to activate vacant spaces, transforming them into collaborative work, exhibition, community, meeting or celebration spaces.

These short-term activations would be explicitly designed as a first step in creating longer-term collaborations between landlords with vacant properties and creative projects in need of space.

Impact: Animation of vacant properties will increase visibility and footfall delivering economic benefits, support micro-businesses and freelancers to grow their business, and offer new opportunities for local people, demonstrating community wealth building in action.

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Creative Space Demonstrators 3. Creative Space Taskforce

2. Creative Space Learning Exchange Cultural spaces have specific needs, and offer unique benefits and economic opportunities, typically increasing property values within a one-street radius. This programme would bring together landlords, property developers, and brokers with creative practitioners, businesses and organisations to better understand each others needs, evaluate current processes, identify collaborative opportunities and develop new approaches to commercial property brokerage.

This would involve training and education for brokers looking to work with creative businesses and organisations, and provide training and education around commercial space management for the creative sector.

Impact: New partnerships between the creative and property sector would mean improved creative space provision and provide new economic opportunities.

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A Creative Space Taskforce would bring together creative practitioners, businesses and organisations, members of the local authority and government, city partners, academic researchers, the commercial property sector, and community stakeholders.

Driven by people who are actively interested in the intersection of cultural activity and commercial property, they would collectively advocate for the economic and social value that creative spaces provide, and generate shared data which supports the development of creative space infrastructure in Dundee.

This taskforce will directly help Creative Dundee and the City of Dundee gain a full picture of the extent and impact of cultural spaces in the city — their size, scale, audience, impact, and the issues they face.

Impact: Cross-sector learning will result in a shared understanding across communities, building collective intelligence and data resources within Dundee’s creative sector, and momentum across the city.

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Creative Dundee and the Creative Sector: • Connect with and share learnings from existing creative spaces in Dundee and beyond.

• Begin to identify specific needs not being met by current legal frameworks around commercial space leasing, acquisition, and use.

Next Steps: City-Wide Collaboration There is a significant opportunity for Dundee to now leverage its advantage by further prioritising space for the Creative & Digital Industries to strengthen and grow the sector; which could further catalyse city centre regeneration.

As a city known for its strong cross-organisational partnerships, these Creative Space Demonstrators will require the leadership, collaborative efforts and resources of partners across the city, including Dundee City Council, arts and cultural communities, and commercial property owners/agents.

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• Collaboratively engage and negotiate with city partners and landlords to explore options for temporary and long-term space.

Local Authority and City Partners: • Develop a plan for city-owned properties and work with the creative sector to explore temporary, stepped and collaborative leasing models.

• Resource pilot programming while independent philanthropy is identified.

• Identify individuals within property and economic transformation to take part in the Creative Space Learning Exchange programme.

• Prioritise the issue of creative space, to work with the creative sector and secure external funding and investment.

Properties Owners/Agents: • Identify vacant property which could be made available rent-free to creative businesses, organisations and projects; increasing its visibility, the footfall and property value in the area, and benefiting from business rates relief.

• Identify individuals interested in exploring creative space opportunities, as part of the Creative Space Taskforce and the Creative Space Learning Exchange programme.

• Collate and share resources which could be developed into new templates in consultation with the creative sector, which better suit relationships with the creative community.

This report was coordinated and written by Matthew Richter, principal of the cultural space consultancy Cultural.Space, and by Eilish Victoria, creative producer at Creative Dundee.

The content summarised in this report was the collective work of a much larger team, who worked together to communicate the creative space needs of Dundee.

Original Hapworks identity created by Agency of None.

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