St Enoch Creative Quarter

Re-imagining Work & Mobility in the City

The project has identified two global urgencies concerning the outdated models of urban mobility and workplace in the 21st century. The interrelated nature of these urgencies presents an opportunity to respond to them silmultaneously through the adoption of current information age technologies.The automobile was one of the key inventions of the 19th century which has had a profound impact on the shape of today’s cities. As cars became the dominant form of transportation, cities were designed and developed around its necessary infrastructure. Ironically, the once desired limitless accessibility offered by the automobile has resulted in a dispersed, fragmented and disconnected urban landscape which has relegated its unmotorised citizens to the side lines. Studies show that the daily commute to work accounts for the majority of car trips into the city, where cars spend most of the time parked, stealing a staggering amount of valuable urban space.

However, as recently demonstrated at an unprecedentedly large scale during the global pandemic, in the information age work no longer needs to be bound to the four walls of an office. Contrary to previous beliefs, remote-work could assist in urban reconcentration, as it creates an even greater demand for other face to face interchanges for the purposes of creative collaboration and skill-sharing. These interchanges go beyond the once rigidly confined definitions of home, work, and leisure, inspiring an emergence of a new category of place. As a response, the project aims to utilise the global shift towards remote-work as an opportunity to re-imagine the city as a place which prioritises people instead of automobiles. Using a key section of the St Enoch’s district in Glasgow as a prototype, the project reclaims and repurposes a variety of obsolete infrastructure into innovative spaces nurturing creativity and encouraging active mobility.