To celebrate World Environment Day, Creative Crawley are proud to announce the launch of Meanwhile Spaces: A Green Guide today. Meanwhile spaces are vacant spaces around town centres that are repurposed, often for cultural and community activities, temporarily transforming an existing space whilst it awaits permanent redevelopment. They offer the opportunity to fill towns and cities with creativity and life, as well as often being a more environmentally friendly option than building from scratch.
A Green Guide is a framework for environmental best practice for those working in meanwhile spaces, particularly in the cultural sector. It lays out key principles and action plans for repurposing a space. These meanwhile spaces give us the chance to consider resources and design, yet also bring challenges due to short lead times, short leases and tenants having very little control over infrastructure and services.
A Green Guide sets out methods for achieving the greatest impact in your green practice, focusing on what you can control the most, with action plans for every step of working in a meanwhile space – from planning to move in, to when you leave. Covering topics such as energy, construction, technical and influence, each action plan features baseline, intermediate, and advanced guidelines, meaning it’s possible to tailor your approach to suit the needs of your organisation and space. Whilst not all of the guide will be relevant to everyone, we’re certain there will be relevant recommendations for everybody within the framework. Additionally it includes suggestions of questions you can ask your landlord, to build a collaborative relationship that centres environmental policy.
Please share the green guide with your networks and spread the word, so everyone can benefit from this wonderful work.
A Green Guide was commissioned by Creative Crawley, researched and written by Amber Massie-Blomfield for Fern Culture and funded by a Place Partnership Project Grant from Arts Council England for The Creative Village.
We would like to thank the contributors who have supported the creation of this guide: Beth Williams, Louise Blackwell, Sam Evans, Stuart Heyes and University of Sussex Students: Didehan Topsakal, Alice Chapman, Faris Barnes, Leif Lukic and Elizabeth Ogundeji.
Blog by Rosie Gilbertson, Producer, Creative Crawley
Image credit: Together We Are A Garden at the temporary artist studios at West Green Studios, Crawley, Jan 2026
