CREATIVE SPACES Nancy Duxbury and Catherine Murray Both as ...

Published in Y.R. Isar & H.K. Anheier (Eds.), Cultural Expression, Creativity, and Innovation. The Cultures and 

Globalization Series, Volume 3. London: Sage Publications, 2009. 

CREATIVE SPACES 

Nancy Duxbury and Catherine Murray 

Both as a context and a set of dynamics for the emancipation and production of cultural 

expression, globalization erodes certainty. Traditional relationships among what the 

editors of this volume call the ‘worldly, productive sites of crossing’: complex, unfinished 

paths between local and global attachment (James Clifford) are turning on their head. If we 

can accept that creative expression involves individual acts, in creative sites which allow 

for new types of collaboration, then it is important to understand the forces structuring 

these sites. Places for expression are driven by a need for agglomeration in much new 

creative economy thinking (see the Second Volume of the Cultures and Globalization 

Series), so that design of place, contextualization and aesthetics of space become 

productive factors in understanding creativity and innovation. The scale of creative spaces 

can range from the global hierarchy of cities, their emergent rivals and the satellite 

communities or cracks at the margins and boundaries of systems, to the sub-city-scale hubs 

and particular places of connection in which global and local flows of creativity and 

innovation intermix and are facilitated. Cultural geography, urban planning and new 

thinking about the global flows of the creative economy present fundamental opportunities 

for many cities and smaller communities who are actually enacting “processes of 

repluralisation”(Anheier and Isar, this volume). As such communities re-stake their ‘place 

on the map’, by repositioning and reinventing their economic base, many are also thinking 

about how to construct and foster vibrant creative spaces as a resource for, incubator of or 

place for production, rehearsal , performance or exhibition of new genres, new artistic 

works or new practices. This chapter outlines the conceptual underpinnings of creative 

spaces as physical, embedded places where creative production, exhibition and 

consumption occur. It examines a knowledge production process consisting of ideas 

(embedded intelligences, and imagination), planning (patterns of involvement and 

intervention), and policy (integration). The authors argue for a ‘cultural ecology’ approach 

to built or natural creative spaces within communities of any scale that is constructivist, 

holistic, and based on both physical and social infrastructure. Creative space-making as a 

policy sub-field must more adequately incorporate issues of locality, sociality, cultural 

diversity, and equity while bridging disparate professional vocabularies or grammars of 

space. 

Introduction 

The processes of globalization are creating a new geography of centres and margins, intensifying 

interest in the processes of spatialization (Sassen, 2006). Contrary to the expectations of the 1990s, 

centralization of cultural power in ‘global cities’ has been uneven, resulting in a distributed, 

‘polycentric’ networked economy of cultural production and exchange (Davoudi, 2003). If the 

‘doctrine of creativity is now an animating force’ for the ‘digital age’ (Schlesinger, 2007: 387), it is 

increasingly accepted i that place is an important driver of creativity (CEP, 2006; Drake, 2003). 

Creative cities, creative clusters and, increasingly, creative hubs in cultural policies and culturalpolicy-led 

urban regeneration strategies are embedded with assumptions about how creative space is 

produced. What are creative spaces? How are they conceived? Who are they for? And, what is their

“Cultural Spaces” (Duxbury & Murray) Please do not circulate 

relationship to fostering and harnessing the force of creative expression for cultural, social, and 

economic advancement? 

Creative spaces are often considered a synonym for cultural facilities, cultural/creative milieus, 

enclaves, corridors, quarters, districts, clusters, or creative hubs. They are defined as places where 

creative production and performance occur by chance or design. They are place-based and place 

contingent. While creative space may be virtual, the focus here is on the physical, material 

representation of space or how it is conceived. In this way, we are building upon Henri Lefebrve’s 

(1991) notion of space as a product of the processes and work of creativity performed and 

experienced by humans. ii Creative spaces in this lexicon are what may be called ‘creative hardware’ 

(Richards and Wilson, 2007). They are more than just land, buildings, parks, precincts or districts – 

they are socially constructed products of physical facility/place, people, and 

programming/operational resources. They carry significant iconic or symbolic value. Creative 

spaces operate between current reality and possibility. 

The focus of this chapter is on the creative coming together of different groups, land uses, 

residential forms, and architectural styles to make creative spaces in an urban environment. Creative 

space-making is a practice rooted in three dynamic, interrelated domains: ideas, planning and 

policy, and on-the-ground entrepreneurialism. As new configurations and practices of creative 

space development emerge, various degrees of ‘misalignment’, friction, and disconnectedness 

among these three domains become evident. 

Conceptual Background 

Thinking about creative space is strongly influenced by the disciplines of cultural geography, 

architecture, industrial design, and urban/community planning. iii Creative space-making is an 

emergent policy sub-field, increasingly differentiated from, but indebted to, thinking about creative 

cities, creative industries, economy and society. The goal of creative space-making is to identify 

and optimize strategies for building, adapting, or renovating the necessary infrastructure and 

environment in which human creativity can flourish. A number of cultural policy paradigms guide 

creative space-making. The neo-liberal paradigm of the creative economy iv led to urban 

entrepreneurialism as the competitive response of cities and a new hierarchy of global cities 

(Sassen, 2006). Creative spaces are treated as sites for spectacle and consumption (Hannigan, 

2007). Cities and nation states designed ‘flagship’ spatial amenities to provide magnets for foreign 

capital, attract the creative migrant class, and expand cultural tourism during the fiscal crisis 

triggered by footloose manufacturing plants and loss of jobs offshore. But such instrumentalizing of 

creative space as an ‘amenity’ in tourism-led growth strategies failed to explore the relationship of 

creative spaces to endogenous creative processes. Hence, influenced by high-tech districts and their 

economic spin-offs, cultural centres or clusters began to be conceived of as cultural-economic hubs 

and generators of growth, with locality conceived of as a resource or visual stimuli, an energizing 

‘buzz’ and brand based on tradition and reputation (Drake, 2003). 

The Blair New Labour turn to the ‘creative city’ strategy of urban regeneration broadened the 

traditional aesthetic focus on cultural policy to other ‘creative’ sectors such as design and fashion 

and examining creativity as an input into other areas of the networked economy (Throsby, 2001; 

Flew, 2002; Hartley, 2007). Location and place remain central to this largely UK-led creative 

city/economy policy paradigm, but the target for such facilities switched from the tourist to the 

attraction of highly skilled new residents or local creative workers. Built-out spaces featured arts 

and entertainment districts, anchors in streetscape renewal projects, the promotion of nighttime 

economies, pedestrian plazas, and new collaboration between private developers/investors and not- 

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for-profit creative groups (Gibson and Holman, 2004). Evans (2007) calls this a shift from a 

singular cultural branding approach to city spaces that depend on creative diversity and tension 

rather than predictability, or ‘riskless risk’. In this view, cosmopolitan or creative cities offer a more 

sustainable spatial distribution and diversity of cultural and visitor activity. 

From a survey of literature from over 38 countries with some evidence of ‘creative economy/cluster 

or city’ approaches (Gollmitzer and Murray, 2008), we can accept that strategic creative space 

planning is increasingly part of urban planning, with a spatial dimension that is city-wide, and 

works to establish cultural facility priorities. In parallel with these developments, a focus on the 

changing sociology of the global city led by Sharon Zukin, Peter Hall, Saskia Sassen and others, 

began to ripple through urban studies, building on the earlier community development paradigms of 

the early 1960s, which focused on urban poverty, social welfare maximization and urban 

regeneration projects. This ‘progressive’ tradition in urban planning persists today, and now 

struggles to articulate culture with sustainability and distributive equity as a planning goal. v The 

challenge is to frame cultural strategies for creative spaces in urban revitalization that address social 

and environmental goals without ignoring economic realities. 

A Creative Ecology Approach 

There are typically three biases to policy ideas about creative space-making. First, the creative 

clusters or hubs are primarily portrayed through an economic or political economic lens, with only 

limited acknowledgement of ties to the broader socio-cultural communities in which they reside. 

Second, creative clusters are often described as a bundle of dynamics and activities without a sense 

of how space(s) may be supporting, enabling, or enhancing the various stages of creative processes. 

In a sense, creativity is valorized but still plays out in a black box which hides how the various 

creative stages may be appropriately ‘housed.’ Third, the bulk of the literature generally focuses on 

‘global’ cities exclusively, although this thinking is increasingly taken up in theories about 

‘polycentricity’ (Davoudi, 2003), ‘ordinary cities’ (Robinson, 2006), and small cities and 

communities (e.g., Garrett-Petts, 2005) as well. 

As a corrective to these biases, a more holistic model of developing creative spaces for cultural 

development, experimentation, and evolution is emerging. The social and cultural-creative 

processes of use that inhabit and give life to these spaces are of first concern, acknowledging ‘the 

simultaneous co-existence of social interrelationships at all geographical scales’ (Massey, 1994), 

from the intimacy of the home, local pub, or community cultural centre, to the wide spaces of transglobal 

connections. 

From a planning perspective, Charles Landry’s Cycle of Urban Creativity was one of the first 

models to outline a systematic holistic approach to creativity within an urban context (Landry, 

2000). vi More recently, wide-spread community sustainability initiatives have also encouraged a 

holistic, systems-based planning approach, frequently including cultural, economic, environmental, 

and social dimensions of sustainable development (e.g., Hawkes, 2001; City of Port Phillip, 2002; 

New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2006; Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory, 

2006; Infrastructure Canada, 2008). Creative space-making includes more voluntary basis for 

actions (compared to a heavily legislated, top-down approach) and is rooted in local decisionmaking, 

participatory planning and priority-setting, integrated planning, and (ideally) horizontal 

coordination across municipalities and other local agencies within regions (e.g., districts, counties, 

etc.) (Duxbury et al., 2008). While useful, Landry’s model does not open the black box of the 

cognitive repertoire for creative space-making. To do this, we must turn to a framework for 

knowledge production, borrowed here from Yoshiteru Nakamori, which examines the dynamics of 

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intelligence, imagination, involvement, intervention and integration in creative space making in 

cities (Wierzbicki and Nakamori, 2005). 

Towards a More Holistic Model of Creative Processes in Creative Spaces 

Peter Hall, among others, has lamented the division of professional intelligences about the place of 

culture in urban space in geography, sociology, economics, architecture, cultural studies, or urban 

studies (Hall and Pain, 2006). Too few have taken up the call for a new ‘urban literacy’ that would 

more broadly disperse and interconnect this knowledge base and the skills to ‘read’ a city’s ‘look 

and feel’ of its creative spaces (Centre for Public Space Research, 2004). Creative attributes of 

space, place, and form (or semiotics of structures and other built ‘objects’) need to be more debated 

and diffused among the respective design and urban planning communities (Hutton, 2006). 

Intelligence 

Spatial vocabularies of power have long been embedded in conceptions of urban-rural, centreperiphery, 

and downtown slums-affluent residential areas (Lee, 2007). At issue is how spaces for 

cultural/creative rehearsal, production, performance and archiving are included. The traditional 

ensembles of urban space and form like the piazza, village square, or public commons have been 

anchored by a cultural performance space (typically a theatre or museum). Intelligence about 

creative space, usually organized by the predominant aesthetic or professional/artistic disciplines, 

has traditionally involved large-scale, purpose-built spaces. As more participatory cultural policy 

approaches developed, spaces became multifunctional, scaled down, or more flexible in use and 

(depending on urban regime) clustered around public transit nodes or other green space to 

encourage daily presence. Indeed, variable scale to creative space becomes crucially important in 

adapting to change over time. 

Of particular interest in cultural studies are the cognitive repertoires of visual cityscapes in 

modernist and post modernist sensibilities. vii Building design in the old industrial economy for 

cultural institutions was largely about maintaining control, whereas the social order and design 

values of the new economy stress freedom in the selective areas of labour and identity. In spatial 

politics, the two most critical dimensions are: (1) to balance the need to be central or to position at 

the margins of the city, consciously maintaining an alternative, bohemian atmosphere (see, e.g., 

Mercer, 2006); and (2) to establish an identifiable standing place with strongly shared 

representations and/or an open and flexible space constantly adapting to changes in the wider 

cultural and urban field (Mommaas, 2004). Diversity is widely accepted as a dominant design ethic: 

in addition to ‘function mixing’—old, new, closed, open and so on—there is attention to day/night 

economies, and chances for accidental encounters to frame intercultural curiosity or a cosmopolitan 

imagination (Hospers, 2003). However, the growing anxiety about public security after 9/11 shows 

increasing preoccupation with the spatial policing of heterogeneity (Cochrane, 2007), surveillance, 

and social control. Yet creativity thrives in the tension between orderly and disorderly space, so 

managing the interplay of these zones is crucial. 

New taxonomies of creative spaces are emerging. They can be assembled on the basis of their role 

in the cultural-creative value chain (experimentation, creation, rehearsal, performance, exhibition, 

archiving); their role in creative knowledge production (from visible knowledge to invisible or tacit 

knowledge); cognitive-experiential modes of cultural participation; or fixity or flow in the 

knowledge economy (Markus, 1993; Bennett et al., 1999; Castells, 1996). In response to Richard 

Florida’s (2002) creative class thesis, more attention is being placed on attributes of emotional 

affect. Spatial cognition looks at the means by which people construct an image of the city in which 

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they live, and translate this into awareness and identification (Hospers, 2003). With the focus on the 

role of cultural amenities on attracting creative workers viii new studies identify the appealing 

aesthetic attributes which provoke ‘aesthetic curiosity’ (the unexpected use of the alley, the 

compatibility with night life), ‘place’ (the attachment of boundedness, coziness, and authenticity), 

sociality (opportunities for informal co-location or clustering of different creative disciplines), and 

diversity (historic building and other amenity types ix ) (Helbrecht, 2003; Hutton, 2006). 

Imagination 

The aspirational aspect of the creative space imaginary is a remarkable resource—looking outward, 

globally and competitively, and inward, locally and co-operatively. Critiques of disembedded 

visions of ‘starchitects’ in the period of spectacle and consumption are now so well known they 

have generated vernacular shorthand: the Bilbao effect. x Opposing this view, in the organic ecology 

paradigm (influenced by urban theorist Jane Jacobs) is the postulate that the roots of creative spaces 

always lie in the existing, historically developed urban environment (Hospers, 2003). The best 

strategy is always to assess the actual situation and needs for creative space-making, renovating or 

adapting in particular contexts. xi In these ways, imagination connects space to place. Places are 

spaces with meaning and local knowledge attached. Spatial imaginaries are most productive when 

local and grounded. 

From our meta-analysis of extensive literatures on cultural infrastructure and creative space, the 

leading trends in re-conceptualizing creative space goals include recovering rurality as lived 

creative space (Cloke, 2007) or the ‘slow’ urban movement, identifying how to construct 

‘empathetic destinations’ to avoid the exploitative tourist frame on cultural development (Richards 

and Wilson, 2007), and how to define ‘authenticity’ (i.e., unique, local differentiation) in creative 

city visions. 

Current trends in physical creative space developments reflect changing artistic practices, a new 

design ethic of intermixture and involvement, and ‘flexibilization’ of space. xii The models presented 

here as incubators, creative habitats, multi-sector convergence projects are not mutually exclusive. 

Indeed, combinations of operating models are emerging that blur the lines between for-profit and 

not-for-profit creative enterprises, influencing how cultural-creative activity is organized, how 

spaces are used and governed, and challenging the funding systems and planning contexts. 

Incubators 

Cultural or creative incubators form an ‘umbrella type’ of creative spaces that offer various 

platforms of support for creators and enable connection, production, and networking among creators 

and their publics. Artist co-operatives, media arts centres, and new media artist-run centres, as 

examples, benefit from coming together to share specialized equipment and production spaces. 

While some incubators are multidisciplinary in nature, many others are defined by their specialties 

(e.g., fashion, visual arts, film), usually serving a ‘hub’ role for particular communities, operating as 

extensions of them, and evolving over time. They may be municipality-owned-and-operated, notfor-profit 

co-operatives and societies, or a combination of commercial and not-for-profit 

organizations. 

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Méduse Coopérative, Quebec City, Canada 

Méduse comprises 10 independent studios (woodworking, stone, metal, engraving, and 

multipurpose), and range of services including a photography lab, exhibition rooms, and rehearsal, 

photography, sound, film, video, and radio studios. It contains space for archiving and equipment 

storage, offices, a central computer server, café-bistro, and an artist studio-apartment (for 

international residencies). Approximately 60 per cent of the space is dedicated to development and 

40 per cent to exhibition. 

http://www.meduse.org/ 

Arts House, Melbourne, Australia 

Arts House, operating from a collection of historic public buildings, is an arts centre operated by the 

City of Melbourne. It integrates subsidized office/work space for arts organizations and individual 

artists, performance spaces, rehearsal and development spaces, meeting rooms, galleries, a digital 

media and sound studio (with recording capability), visual arts studios, a writers’ lab, and a 

producers’ hub. Arts House provides support for artists from exploration/creation through to 

presentation/exhibition, promotion, and touring, and has built a reputation for working 

interculturally (Beal, 2008). 

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=186&pg=2163 

Creative habitats 

Evolving from incubators as singular buildings, discourse is expanding to a broader perspective of 

creative habitats asking, from the perspective of a creative production ecology, what do artists need 

to thrive? Jones (2008) identified key components of a creative production milieu as: space and 

place (mixed living/working spaces), networks and a sense of community, entrepreneurial support, 

and neighbourhoods with distinctive and authentic features. Other desirable features include 

alternative, experimental spaces allowing for ‘fluid streams’ of activity; use of ‘non-traditional’ 

public domain spaces by artists for temporary projects; locally grounded ‘creative spaces enabling 

networks’; and artists treated as creative resources for a broader community. xiii 

Multi-sector convergence projects 

Crucial to a creative economy, convergence centres are vibrant physical places designed to 

maximize socialization, networking, and random collisions within them. Cross-sectoral 

convergence centres are leading to new sustainable operating models of shared sites and spaces. 

Notably, these projects are often situated within re-purposed heritage buildings—another recurring 

theme is the restoration or rehabilitation of spaces for repurposed uses. Some projects are designed 

as ‘public realm’ while others are more inwardly focused. 

The Artscape Wychwood Barns, Toronto, Canada 

Toronto Artscape, the City of Toronto, and the Stop Community Food Centre are transforming 

historic streetcar repair barns into a multifaceted art centre, community centre, and environment 

centre. It will include artist live-work and studio tenancies and features such as a commercial 

kitchen, community wood-burning bake oven, communal gardens, and camps for children. The 

diversity of the components is facilitating interesting cross-linkages. 

http://www.torontoartscape.on.ca/barns/ 

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Waag Society, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 

The Waag Society was founded to make new media available to those with minimal access to 

computers and Internet. The medialab developed into an ‘avant-gardistic thinktank’, building 

technology around social and cultural issues, and is active in the fields of networked art, healthcare, 

education, and Internet-related issues. It operates from its own heritage Waag Building and Pakhuis 

de Zwijger, a renovated warehouse that also houses the Media Guild. Partners come from all sectors 

of society. 

http://www.waag.org/ 

Involvement 

In an era when historical recollection of built form and its social context is thin, how do artists, 

planners, and citizens seek to balance the aims of economic efficiency, social welfare, and 

environmental sustainability with beauty and liveability? As Uzzell et al. (2002) note, the value 

framework interrelating the environment and cultural/social/urban development must take into 

account both the objective environment (physical environment, natural resources) and the 

psychological and phenomenological environment (perception and evaluation of cultural resources, 

group reference, expectancies, lifestyles). Design can be ‘an active force in the sustainability of 

culture by reflecting and representing the respective people and places in which it is working’ 

(Blankenship, 2005: 24). xiv 

Participatory planning exercises bring collective visioning to communities, developing new 

techniques to bridge specialized discourses to everyday vocabularies and, increasingly, using 

expressive tools and social networking sites for citizens to ‘map’ their local cultural iconic spaces. 

These exercises may also include consultations with artistic groups to identify unmet space needs. 

Channelling this information through local planning regimes with separate recreational, 

engineering, social, cultural, and land use bureaucracies imposes complex challenges in reconciling 

professional languages and worldviews to influence local politicians. 

At the same time, a new entrepreneurialism is taking root, xv and online resource hubs in numerous 

cities (e.g., CAR in Chicago) are helping to build independent entrepreneurial capacity to envision 

and plan, conduct feasibility analyses, and fundraise for their spatial ventures. Yet sustaining longterm 

community involvement of volunteers in public initiatives is challenging (Cochrane, 2007). A 

multi-generational strategy is needed to maintain the involvement of a largely volunteer or 

‘precarious’ base of creative labour in governance of creative space-making. 

Intervention 

Cities are implicated in complex systems of governance, with sharply different constitutional 

powers and fiscal levers. Not only is there a trend to multilevel governance, increasingly, armslength 

creative development agencies (such as Creative Scotland) interact with multiple tiers of city, 

regional, state, national, and private-sector interests, and there is an increased corporatization of 

form (e.g., arrangements including private sector developers, not-for-profit entrepreneurs, etc.). 

In cities where the rise to develop ‘creative spaces’ has been taken up most keenly, the desire for 

‘enabling’ structures, organizational cultures, and milieu to encourage creative activity have often 

initially spawned top-down policy–management structures (Schlesinger, 2007). Both in practice and 

in the literature, a collective call for replacing this ‘meta-structure’ mentality with more organic, 

grassroots-directed, flexible and enabling conditions/support is emerging (e.g., Sandercock, 2003; 

Crossick, 2006; Goldbard, 2006; Schlesinger, 2007; Stern and Seifert, 2007, among others). 

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The most important variables in the construction of creative spaces are city land ownership and 

control over use of land, property, and premises. In 2002, London and Toronto identified a range of 

levers for municipal intervention in creative spaces including: creative cluster strategies, designing 

creative quarters, liberalizing zoning regulations, promoting positive images of diversity, and direct 

and indirect support for creative enterprises (Evans et al., 2006). Direct ownership and operation of 

facilities is the most assertive way to build creative space, as is building public artist housing (or 

work-live space). Use of public-private partnerships and business improvement districts is also 

increasing. 

Individual cities, regional and national programs, and supra-national programs (such as the EU 

Cultural Capitals program) have provided money to enable development of cultural facilities across 

many cities and communities of different scales. In the spread of creativity as a mode of policy 

address around the world, China (Keane, 2007), Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab 

Emirates have made dramatic infusions of public investment in flagship cultural facilities. However, 

while knowledge and cultural perspectives on creative space-making circulate in global policy 

networks, there are few systematic comparisons of cultural infrastructural investments and it is 

difficult to compile public accounts of cultural assets (Waltman Daschko, 2008). 

Private or civil society-sector investment in creative spaces is a growing part of the picture. Finance 

models for creative spaces are typically dependent upon a variety of mechanisms and sources, many 

enabled by legislation specific to a country or sub-national region. Challenges are emerging with 

traditional sector-specific funding frameworks that cannot embrace blended for-profit and non-forprofit 

interconnections, and a reformed private-public financial framework is needed. In the 

discourse around creative space development and operation, three overarching financial models are 

emerging: non-profit real estate development, non-profit and community investment funds, and 

social enterprise development (Duxbury et al., 2008). 

Integration 

Issues of sustainability overarch all development initiatives today. Sustainability is fundamentally 

about adapting to a new ethic of living on the planet and creating a more equitable and just society 

through the fair distribution of social goods and resources in the world (Darlow, 1996). The most 

common definition of sustainable development comes from the World Commission on Environment 

and Development 1987 report, Our Common Future: ‘Sustainable development is development that 

meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations to meet their own needs’ 

(p. 43). Traditionally, sustainability has been focused on an environmentalism framework, and 

environmental concerns continue to be the cornerstone of sustainable development. As the concept 

has matured, however, increasing emphasis has been placed on its interconnection to social and 

economic dimensions of development, and space has opened up for debate and further reflection 

(Kadekodi, 1992; Nurse, 2006a). Culture is gradually becoming a part of this vision and discourse. 

Culture as a key dimension of sustainability is a thinly distributed but pervasive idea in the 

community development and sustainability literature (Duxbury and Gillette, 2007), traditionally 

discussed in terms of cultural capital and defined as ‘traditions and values, heritage and place, the 

arts, diversity and social history’ (Roseland et al., 2005: 12). The emerging framework incorporates 

more dynamic and expansive perspectives in which culture is more broadly conceived as ‘a whole 

way of life’ informing ‘underlying belief systems, worldviews, epistemologies and cosmologies’ 

(Nurse, 2006a: 36). xvi Current literature on culture and sustainability incorporates cross-cutting 

concerns about cultural vitality, cultural continuity xvii , social embeddedness, social equity, and deep 

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environmental knowledge (see, e.g., Chandler and Lalonde, 1998; Uzzell et al., 2002; Doubleday et 

al., 2004; Blankenship, 2005; Nurse, 2006a, 2006b; Rhoades, 2006; Thorpe, 2007). 

The conceptual idea behind this fourfold model is deceptively simple: creative expression and 

participation, which is at the heart of the dynamism of human settlements, requires unlocking the 

energies of the social economy of artists, citizens, volunteers and not-for-profit groups to work and 

play in around and through the formal creative economy. This social economy in turn adds value 

which produces economic growth and prosperity horizontally across many economic sectors within 

the carrying capacity of the natural environment. This ecological value chain in turn is embedded in 

a supportive culture which celebrates a sustainable ethos, and produces the symbolic capital to 

sustain it. Specific planning and policy initiatives (e.g., requiring a cultural assessment in reviewing 

development initiatives and plans, enforcing LEED standards on cultural facilities, commissioning 

public art for important social and heritage sites, integrating cultural spaces with affordable housing 

or social programs for at risk groups, valuing the role of volunteer contributions in calculations of 

economic contributions, or taxing tourism businesses for carbon offsets or reinvestment in arts 

activities) are all ways to ensure the four pillars are considered equally and integrated with each 

other and within an ecological and holistic approach. 

In policy and planning initiatives, culture as the fourth pillar of sustainability in urban systems (and 

for smaller communities) is gradually gaining currency in places such as Australia, Canada, the 

Caribbean, Europe, and New Zealand. Jon Hawkes’ The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: Culture’s 

Essential Role in Public Planning, and New Zealand’s model of four community well-beings 

(social, economic, environmental, and cultural) have proved influential. In recognition of this need 

to consider a four-fold, integrated planning approach, the federal government in Canada has tied gas 

tax sharing agreements for its cities to the development of local ‘Integrated Community 

Sustainability Plans’, integrated policy/planning frameworks that provide direction for community 

sustainability planning objectives for the environmental, social, economic, and cultural dimensions 

of its identity (Infrastructure Canada, 2008). To be sure, there is still resistance in many planning 

communities more familiar with economic or traditional land use worldviews in community 

development which treat cultural facilities or creative spaces as an afterthought. 

Nonetheless we argue that carefully designed socio-cultural community spaces can contribute to 

integrating artists and arts with everyday culture and to addressing wider social issues, economic 

development dimensions, and other challenges of community life. Cultural centres, as a cornerstone 

component of broader revitalization initiatives, can balance an array of considerations for 

community benefit and bring together different economic, social, and cultural dimensions in 

thoughtful, inclusive, and locally grounded manners. 

TOHU, Montreal, Canada 

TOHU is an ‘encounter’ between a burgeoning arts community looking for a home, an 

environmentally damaged site in the process of being restored, and a low-income neighbourhood 

‘unsure of what to do with its rich potential’ (Brunelle, 2008). TOHU’s three-pronged mission – 

circus (art), earth (environment), and people (community) – is bound together through an 

overarching concern for human development. It has a job readiness program for neighbourhood 

youth and a policy that all staff working with the public at TOHU live in the neighbourhood. 

http://www.tohu.ca 

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Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay, Haida Gwaii, Canada 

The Haida Heritage Centre, celebrating the rich culture, art, and history of the Haida Nation, 

consists of five contemporary timber longhouses housing an expanded Haida Gwaii Museum, 

exhibition space, meeting rooms/classrooms, the Performing House, Canoe House, Bill Reid 

Teaching Centre, Carving Shed, gift shop, and a restaurant/café. The Haida Heritage Centre 

contributes to the preservation of Haida culture and to the diversification of the local economy of 

this small rural community. 

http://www.haidaheritagecentre.com 

The sustainability of an urban system can be understood as the compatibility and productive 

intermixture between social, economic, and cultural dynamics and environmental resources in the 

present and the future (Uzzell et al., 2002). We argue that models of creative space-making must 

include a duty of care (a fiduciary, long-term public trust approach) which specifically protects 

intergenerational and class equity as well as ethno-cultural diversity. 

‘Duty of care’ traditionally interprets intergenerational equity to refer to historical buildings and 

creative spaces which archive and preserve cultural expression. xviii Indeed, an extensive scaffolding 

of international covenants adopted by UNESCO xix (which intervenes to protect certain cultural 

places, notably under its ‘World Heritage’ mechanisms) and at various regional and national levels 

have established a fairly robust set of ‘responsibilities’ to protect historical spaces for future 

generations. xx We propose that holistic creative space policy incorporate notions of stewardship, 

and enable a framework to address issues of gentrification, multicultural flows, and ‘in place’ 

intercultural diversity. 

Gentrification 

The impact of artist-led regeneration on sustaining creative spaces is of particular interest. Upscaling 

can take many forms: the path from ‘unslumming’ (Jane Jacobs) to neighbourhood 

improvement to gentrification is a continuum. Gentrification is most often linked to the movement 

of artists into previously poor, unsafe, or unfashionable districts, who then in turn may be displaced 

by red-hot real estate markets. Intentional gentrification may also involve the deployment of 

purpose-built cultural spaces to anchor revitalization in certain zones. Numerous projects have 

shown that the advent of a theatre can drive local restaurants and other amenities and increase 

property value for residents locally (e.g., Sharpe et al., 2004). 

Philadelphia’s Social Impact of the Arts Project shows a strong correlation between the presence of 

cultural providers, dense social networks, and the decline of poverty in low- income areas and 

makes the case for ‘natural’ cultural district development on an evolutionary, small scale model 

(Stern and Seifert, 2007). The hollowing out of artistic presence through the processes of 

gentrification, both from the perspective of having a voice in the community and the ability to keep 

spaces as artistic or creative ones, is a central risk to sustainability. Connecting artists and 

community through creating small organizations and partnerships can help embed a creative 

community into the wider socio-economic milieu. Individual artist ownership of physical spaces 

and artist co-operatives have proven to be effective models in maintaining artistic spaces and 

presence in a community over time, often enabled by municipal intervention during development or 

created by non-profit real estate developers. 

Progressive social strategies seeking to mitigate the effects of displacement attendant with 

gentrification have imposed linkage fees and exactions on developers but have had only limited 

10


success in ensuring social goals for creative spaces. Indeed, surveys of local planners find they are 

rarely top-of-mind in rationales for cultural space development – fewer than 10 per cent of cities 

surveyed in the US, for example, look at publicly subsidized housing for creators and artists 

(Grodach and Loukaitou-Sideris, 2008). 

Most analyses suggest the principal barrier against excessive gentrification is a more spatially 

integrated urban policy, one focused on incenting and encouraging mixed-use developments, 

committed to maintaining and renewing social housing stock over time and preventing speculative 

flipping of publicly subsidized artist live-work studios or spaces. Social inclusion strategies in the 

construction of creative spaces include: strong public housing with artist access, empowerment zone 

financing, long-term rent controls, public investment funds for cultural-creative space development, 

and micro-financing for cultural entrepreneurs. 

Diversity 

In most ecological thinking, diversity is the ultimate outcome of dynamic systems. The same is true 

of culture, where diversity is increasingly recognized as a means of achieving resilience for the 

cultural ecology as a whole (Bradshaw and Bekoff, 2001). The ‘duty of care’ to the multicultural 

flows of immigrants and sojourners links the dynamics of globalization with the development of 

creative spaces and inclusive place-making. The social dimensions of creative spaces deserve closer 

consideration, with particular attention to the inherent desirability of fostering cultural-creative 

diversity within these spaces (Mommaas, 2004, Sacco et al., 2007) as well as the broader culturalcreative 

diversity of communities (Duxbury et al., 2006; Dang and Duxbury, 2007). Related to this 

is the importance of inter-disciplinarity and hybridity in aesthetic modes of creation and innovation. 

The challenge is to make existing creative spaces inclusive of different cultural groups (see, e.g., 

Duxbury et al., 2006; Mercer, 2006), and redistribute resources to them. 

Where there is a dearth of intelligence is in cross-cultural form, and different religious or cultural 

interpretations of ‘private’ or ‘public’ space. Blending architectural knowledges (of the use of 

facades, for example, inspired by Oriental or Islamic traditions), and new experiments of ethnoscapes 

or their renewal have the potential to promote intercultural understanding, local 

neighbourhood identification, and creativity. 

Conclusion 

The integrated creative space-planning approach which we have outlined as a proactive move 

forward from site-specific ad hoc development ones faces three main challenges. The first is to 

develop a robust, multifaceted approach to creative space development that is sensitive to the 

changing needs of the creative activity that animates the physical spaces and to emerging multisectoral 

and blended operational models. The second is to provide a comprehensive planning 

framework that can facilitate and enable collaborative/decentralized development spurred by 

grassroots cultural vitality and capacity. The third challenge is to balance the rigidity of ‘must have’ 

prescriptive approaches with more flexible ones that embed stable, long-term cultural-creative 

facility investments within broader planning processes. These challenges reflect the tensions 

between the planned and the organic, top-down or bottom-up, creator-led or creative coalition-led 

project designs. 

Conceptual approaches and practices to creative space are evolving and the emerging models are 

challenging existing planning, financial, and policy systems. The cases we have cited are modest in 

scale, grounded, flexible, and consistent with an urban duty of care to protect intergenerational, 

class, and intercultural equity while fostering creative vitality and enabling it to flourish. A ‘thick’ 

11


understanding of local cultural-creative spaces and their human resources forms the policy 

intelligence foundation on which to integrate culture with economic, education, environmental, 

social, and health policies. Local cultural strategies need to balance entrepreneurship with a needsbased 

analysis, to seek ‘authentic’ local differentiation, and recover a dimension of playfulness in 

cities, not as an experience of consumption and staged commercial production but a genuine 

expression of creativity and a process of intercultural education and re-discovery (Bianchini, 

2004).We join forces with many who argue that the design of the built creative environment is an 

important element of the productive forces of society, not just a reflection of them (Hutton, 2006). 

Acknowledgments 

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the editors and authors for this opportunity to 

participate in rethinking the physical structures in which creativity can be unleashed. Mirjam 

Gollmitzer, Keith McPhail, Erin Schultz, Eileen Gillette, and Kelsey Johnson of SFU’s Center for 

Policy Studies on Culture and Communities have been invaluable for their research assistance. 

Some of the research in this article was based on a series of cross-Canada regional and national 

policy and issues dialogues on The State of Cultural Infrastructure and papers presented at the 

international symposium Creative Construct: Building for Culture and Creativity, Ottawa, April 28- 

May 1, 2008. These events were made possible principally through support from Infrastructure 

Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage. 

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|NOTES 

i However, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America are underrepresented in the creative/economy/policy 

literature. 

ii Henri Lefebvre (1991) locates the conceptual representation of space in the signs, discourses, and objectified 

images of spatial order traded by designers, planners, geographers, and other ‘scientists.’ Paul Cloke (2007) 

reminds us that the other equally important dimensions are representational space (how it is lived or 

experienced) and spatial practices (how it is perceived) (see Richards and Wilson, 2007). 

iii This context may help to explain why visual approaches such as cultural mapping are frequently used to 

identify and codify cultural resources and assets. Early prototypes of such maps worked to ‘visibilize’ unseen 

locations of cultural spaces, highlighting proximity, tracing direction, and occasionally indicating changes 

over time. Frequently two-dimensional, they use simple inputs of locational coordinates and asset type. Now 

there are more sophisticated (GIS) uses of the mapping techniques explore dimensions of density and access, 

either in terms of audience access, or foot traffic or of affordability, lease rates and so on. Some are indexical 

and much more interpretive in nature. 

iv David Harvey’s simple characterization of early neo-liberalism is premised on the notion that ‘human wellbeing 

can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional 

framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free 

trade.’ (Harvey, 2007: 22). Harvey was one of the first political economists to identify the urban 

entrepreneurial thesis in 1989. 

17


v Evans (2005) helpfully distinguishes between culture-led regeneration, cultural regeneration and culture 

disconnected from regeneration. 

vi The model identifies are five stages in the cycle: (1) Enhancing the ideas-generating capacity of the town, 

(2) Turning ideas into reality, (3) Networking and circulating ideas, (4) Providing platforms for delivery, and 

(5) Building audiences and markets. Renewable urban energies feedback into stage 1. 

vii Modernist visions are characterized by mega-structural bigness, straight space (city centre canyons or 

suburban vistas) rational order, hardness and opacity, and discontinuous serial vision. On the other hand, 

postmodern townscapes include ‘quaintspace’, textured facades, stylishness, reconnection with the local 

(often involving deliberate historical/geographical construction) and a reemphasis on walking corridors (see 

E. Relph, quoted in Hutton, 2006: 1822). 

viii The Lloyd Quarter in the old harbour of Rotterdam presents itself as a ‘total formula’ for the creative class, 

supplying it not only with exclusive office and living space – a variation of shiny hypermodern objects, 

maritime-like buildings and reconverted warehouses – but also bars, restaurants, sporting and fitness facilities, 

and so on. The Lloyd Quarter has been conceived of as a hedonistic ‘special zone’ for the creative class, an 

exclusive playground fully catered to the needs and desires of its extravagant target group (Boie and Pawels, 

2007). 

ix Creative workers look for spaces to work in characterized by: ample space (i.e., not less than 800 square 

feet in live/work studio guidelines), good natural lighting, ventilation, design tending to upper-levels of 

historic buildings, with retail activity on the lower floor, and many personalized features of interior design 

(Hutton, 2006: 1835). 

x Gehry’s design for the Guggenheim Bilbao exhibit is ‘dropped in’ on the landscape, and the development is 

regarded as bold as it is controversial, with mixed economic and social impacts, since it did not grow a local 

arts market, for example. 

xi Andy Pratt (2002) argues the evidence for positive impact on policy interventions in creative clusters is 

weak, and indeed, creative industries must emerge out of some pre-existing activity or strength to flourish. 

xii They may be a result of pragmatism, that is, adjustment to diminishing budgets, or changing 

artistic/experiential needs. 

xiii The situation of artists is often left out of ‘creative city’ discussions. These features were articulated in 

presentations and discussions at the Creative Construct: Building for Culture and Creativity international 

symposium, held April 28 to May 1, 2008 in Ottawa, Canada (www.symposium2008.ca). 

xiv Blankenship (2005) outlines five frameworks for design as key: (1) awareness of the local/personal culture; 

(2) valuing visual traditions and folklore along with an understanding of their impact/influence on 

contemporary design; (3) exhibiting confidence that leads to less dependence upon an imitation of large, 

dominate cultures, and which allows the emergence and integration of local aesthetics; (4) an increase in 

publications that promote local design and recognize individuals who serve as role models for young 

designers; and (5) a vision for the future. 

xv For example, Urban Splash, working out of Manchester and Liverpool, champions organic development to 

unique creative markets and mixed-use development. The Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle integrated 

commercial businesses (bars, a restaurant, and a pilates studio) with cultural components (studio theatre and 

other presentation spaces), and evolved into seven roles: rental venue, promotional partner, investment 

licenser, presenter, sponsor, producer, and community development fund (Kwatinetz, 2008). 

18


xvi This approach resonates with UNESCO’s 1995 definition of the cultural dimension of development as ’the 

whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society 

or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the 

human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs’ (p. 22). 

xvii Chandler and Lalonde (1998) links markers of cultural continuity in First Nations communities with rates 

of teenage suicide in these communities. The authors conclude: ‘Communities that have taken active steps to 

preserve and rehabilitate their own cultures are shown to be those in which youth suicide rates are 

dramatically lower’ (191). 

xviii A survey of larger US cities recently conducted found 70 per cent worked to preserve a historically 

significant public space, building or monument (Grodach and Loukaitou-Sideris, 2008). 

xix These include, the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity of Cultural 

Expressions (2005), the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003). 

Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and National Heritage (1972) and the Convention for the 

Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) among others. 

xx See, for example, Paget (2008): The Community Preservation Act of Massachussetts allows communities to 

generate revenue to acquire and preserve open space, affordable housing, and preserve historic buildings and 

landscapes. 

19

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