OUR PROJECTS
See Space Differently CIC puts the ambition to rethink how we experience, use, and value space at the heart of every project. By combining art, architecture, and community engagement, each initiative demonstrates the potential of creative interventions to transform underused environments into vibrant, meaningful places.
From temporary installations to pilot activations, the CIC’s projects explore how people interact with their surroundings, encouraging reflection, collaboration, and participation. They turn empty shops, forgotten courtyards, and overlooked streets into platforms for experimentation, cultural dialogue, and social connection.
At its core, See Space Differently is about more than transforming spaces—it’s about shifting perspectives. Every project tests new ways of seeing, shaping, and activating environments, showing how creativity can generate social, cultural, and economic value, while empowering communities to take ownership of the spaces around them.
This approach underpins projects like Shape & Shift, Ignite in Nature, and Intervention, where flexible installations, workshops, and events invite people to co-create, explore ideas, and imagine what their environments could become. Each project is a living demonstration of the CIC’s mission: to unlock the potential in spaces, communities, and the people who inhabit them.
Ignite in Nature
Event / Workshop / Install – Richard Connell / Tim Scrace
Supported by University of Winchester
IGNITE IN NATURE transformed the Old Fire Station courtyard, once a forgotten urban corner, into a vibrant temporary garden and oasis in the heart of Salisbury. Young trees interspersed with potted planting, curated by Tim Scrace and Richard Connell, animated the space and inspired conversations, turning concrete and asphalt into pockets of greenery for reflection, play, and connection.
Over 60 attendees explored workshops, talks, and discussions bridging creativity, business, and the environment. Dr. Olivia Chapple of Horatio’s Garden and Vickie Wood from Plantlife highlighted how therapeutic gardens and nature initiatives support wellbeing, biodiversity, and community engagement, prompting action for greener cities.
Tim Scrace challenged greenwashing and corporate responsibility, while Anselm Audley, Charlotte Moreton, and Roger Tyrell sparked new thinking on reclaiming urban spaces and reconnecting with heritage, water, and green infrastructure.
The temporary garden became an immersive experience. Trees, flowers, and textured plantings offered calm and inspiration, turning the courtyard into a living demonstration of what urban nature can achieve. Lunchtime cocktails and creative networking brought the community together in this green oasis.
Shape & Shift
Interactive Installation – Tim Scrace
Supported by Salisbury City Council
Five years after This Too Will Pass captured public imagination on Salisbury High Street, Tim Scrace returns with Shape & Shift, a bold sculptural installation that transforms legacy into a living platform for action. The artwork evolves materials from the earlier piece into three distinct yet interconnected pods representing Art, Architecture, and Community.
Each pod functions as an archetype — a flexible space to exhibit, create, and gather — collectively forming a mobile, interactive sculpture. Rather than a static monument, Shape & Shift is designed to evolve through use, with meaning shaped by exhibitions, workshops, community engagement, and the conversations it inspires. The installation carries forward both the physical and emotional imprint of its predecessor, while opening a dialogue about impermanence, transformation, and the potential of creative collaboration.
Shape & Shift explores how people interact with space and with each other, highlighting the role of creativity in activating environments and fostering connection. It celebrates movement, collaboration, and community agency, inviting the public to experiment, co-create, and imagine new possibilities for the city and its spaces.
As a sculptural artwork, Shape & Shift also functions as a pilot platform for See Space Differently CIC, testing methods for activating underused spaces, facilitating workshops, and exploring how creative interventions can generate social, cultural, and economic value. The pilot expands the artwork into a living system, bridging artistic practice, community engagement, and placemaking strategy — a foundation for future projects and collaborations.
This Too Will Pass
Sculpture – Tim Scrace
Supported by Salisbury Bid and the Arts Council
This Too Will Pass was a landmark public artwork by Tim Scrace, installed on Salisbury High Street in summer 2021. Originally commissioned to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Salisbury Cathedral, the sculpture took on heightened significance during the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a reflection on change, resilience, and collective experience.
The sculpture explored movement, memory, and the passage of time, inviting the public to reflect on the past, present, and future. Constructed from reclaimed materials, it drew subtle references to Salisbury Cathedral’s construction process and the spiritual heritage of the surrounding landscape, including connections to Stonehenge.
Intervention
Artwork / VR Install – Judith Rodgers / Tim Scrace
Supported by Scrace Architects
Intervention transformed the way people experience their city, using creativity to rethink urban space. Led by Scrace Architects in collaboration with Tim Scrace and curator Judith Rodgers, the project explored placemaking through art, sculpture, and virtual reality.
Visitors followed a virtual orange pathway, a skydeck above the local highway that wraps the city, walking among trees, over rivers, and between skyscrapers. Balloon stations, aqua-theatres, and galleries appeared alongside familiar landmarks, including a relocated Stonehenge, inviting fresh perspectives on the city.
Visitors followed a virtual orange pathway, a skydeck above the local highway that wraps the city, walking among trees, over rivers, and between skyscrapers. Balloon stations, aqua-theatres, and galleries appeared alongside familiar landmarks, including a relocated Stonehenge, inviting fresh perspectives on the city.
Visitors followed a virtual orange pathway, a skydeck above the local highway that wraps the city, walking among trees, over rivers, and between skyscrapers. Balloon stations, aqua-theatres, and galleries appeared alongside familiar landmarks, including a relocated Stonehenge, inviting fresh perspectives on the city.
Visitors followed a virtual orange pathway, a skydeck above the local highway that wraps the city, walking among trees, over rivers, and between skyscrapers. Balloon stations, aqua-theatres, and galleries appeared alongside familiar landmarks, including a relocated Stonehenge, inviting fresh perspectives on the city.
PROJECT
Urban Room
Competition – Rebecca Galbraith / Tim Scrace
Invitation from GO Southampton
Pre-Covid, Scrace Architects were invited by GO! Southampton to propose a design for an “Urban Room” in the Marlands Shopping Centre, a concept aimed at rethinking urban placemaking and engaging the city through creative interventions. Commissioned as part of a series of competitions to activate the city centre, the project was conceived as a space to explore, inspire, and shape new projects in Southampton.
Working alongside artist and architect Rebecca Galbraith, the design responds to the city’s history and ecology. On Ogle Road, we observed that the original terrace steps once descended toward the western esplanade, a topography now interrupted by multi-storey car parks. This “level change” became a central idea, expressed through a deconstructed shipping container cantilevering over the edge, referencing both memory and movement in the cityscape.
The concept of a Hanging Garden connects Southampton’s network of parks and ecological corridors to the docks and city centre. By introducing planting that climbs and drapes, the design aims to reclaim urban space as a green destination, reinforcing the city’s natural fabric within a dense urban setting.
Sustainability is embedded in every layer of the project. Materials are reused, recycled, and repurposed wherever possible. Scaffold boards become benches, rigging links spaces above and below, and planting softens structural edges, all referencing Southampton’s heritage while creating a functional, interactive space.
The Marlands “Urban Room” embodies the power of competition-led placemaking, where ideas commissioned through GO! Southampton demonstrate how thoughtful design can reshape public spaces, engage communities, and strengthen connections between people, commerce, and the urban environment.