Making Space for Creativity

There’s light, north-facing studios, office-like environments for those who want them and co-working lounges for individuals who don’t need a permanent spot. Meanwhile, more established creative companies can hire out entire floors. Most importantly, Design District is both affordable and permanent – allowing creatives to focus their energy on launching their debut menswear collection or upcoming exhibition, rather than worrying about their lease.

But what looks set to make the District different from other studio hubs, aside from the scale, is the huge range of facilities packed into the neighbourhood. Tenants have free rein of the wood, engineering, textile and digital workshops on site, each filled with tools from screen printing gear right through to 3D printers. Plus, there's a gallery space that can be hired for exhibitions or launches. There’s no requirement to stay within one discipline either – graphic designers can have a go at CNC milling, for example, or bind a catalogue.

With such a vast range of possibilities at one’s fingertips, Design District will make it easy for creatives to experiment with new ideas or take the leap into a new direction. Of course tenants will find bookable meeting rooms with all mod cons, but there are unexpected facilities too. Budding food and drink businesses can use the industrial test kitchen to explore new ideas or cater for events, and illustrators can hire the public-facing book shop to launch a new book or zine. There’s even a rooftop sports court where creatives can meet up after a long day and play together.

As many tenants will be at the early stages of their careers or perhaps in the process of trying something new, Design District also aims to equip tenants with the skills they need to turn their side hustle into a viable business or reach the next level. A programme of talks and events will illuminate complex subjects like tax, personal branding and marketing and will encourage creatives working in adjacent or completely different fields to meet. In fact, cross-pollination and collaboration have been designed into the architecture – think vibrant communal spaces and multidisciplinary floor plans – plus a District-wide directory will allow tenants to reach out to their neighbours and find the skills they need, right on their doorstop. The programme will also invite local residents and visitors from further afield to be part of the Design District community, expanding on the already popular SAMPLE (a maker fair where you can snap up hand-made products from some of the capital’s most original designers and brands) with other arts festivals and events. It’s a symbiotic relationship that enriches Greenwich Peninsula with artistic energy, while providing tenants with a ready-made audience eager to support their ventures.

Bringing together local people with artists and designers is not a new thing for Greenwich Peninsula – in fact it has been part of the development’s DNA since its inception. The 150-acre site is peppered with ambitious public artworks – take Alex Chinneck’s surreal sculpture A Bullet from a Shooting Star, which perfectly balances a full-sized electricity pylon on its head. In 2016, artist Conrad Shawcross, who makes mechanical sculptures that appear to defy the laws of physics, was also invited to create a new artwork for the Peninsula. His piece, The Optic Cloak, is a 49m-tall geometric feat of engineering that encloses the flue from Greenwich Peninsula’s low-carbon district heating plant. And last year a new riverside art trail, called The Tide, joined up these two sculptures with works by Damien Hirst (a pair of seven-foot bronzes inspired by Ancient Greece and Hinduism, plus a mermaid), pop artist Allen Jones, and designer Morag Myerscough. Masterminded by US design and architecture practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro, The Tide will eventually stretch for 5km along the river, winding round the Peninsula’s distinctive bend in the Thames.

A diverse programme of temporary exhibitions at the Peninsula’s NOW Gallery has also put Greenwich firmly on the art map. Since opening in 2014, NOW Gallery has served up ambitious art, fashion and design shows that hand over the entire space to creatives to realise their vision. Often with a participatory bent, many exhibitions have showcased now-famous creative stars – like fashion designer and Rihanna favourite Molly Goddard – just before they hit the big time. For Goddard’s show, oversized tulle dresses were suspended on pulleys from the ceiling of NOW Gallery and visitors were invited to practice their embroidery skills on their sumptuous folds. In 2016, architecture practice Something & Son created a community brick factory at the gallery, tasking the public with shaping locally dug clay into building materials which were then fired and used to make a folly.