Agile City

Agile City, a community interest company based in North Glasgow, operates two buildings, Civic House and Glue Factory, which provide workspace and event spaces for people involved in social, art, and cultural enterprise. Their aim is to create an inclusive and supportive environment that enables people to turn their ideas into action and contribute to the positive future of Glasgow. Agile City aims to achieve its mission by pursuing three objectives: creating high-quality and vibrant spaces for work and events, hosting a progressive event program to foster community building and idea sharing, and initiating ambitious projects that test equitable ways of producing buildings and spaces. Agile City generates revenue through renting workspace and hiring space for events and production. The profits generated are reinvested back into improving facilities and delivering events or projects. This reinvestment cycle is expected to have a positive impact on the local economy and the regeneration of the area. The retrofit of Civic House is the latest project undertaken by Agile City. The community activities of the building are supported by the building’s sustainable development - which saw the building being deeply retrofitted, with the installation of a full solar PV array on the roof - reducing heating demand to an absolute minimum through high specification insulation and mechanical ventilation heat recovery systems. Agile City looked beyond the building fabric to reduce carbon emissions in all aspects of the building’s operations. Their project includes recycling initiatives based on social enterprise and circular economy principles. The outdoor space will host a growing space and urban food growing. The project will develop incrementally over the years to allow it to adapt to changing dynamics in the local area. This incremental development will make the best use of limited funds allowing the project to be resilient to future change whilst making the greatest local impact. The development for the outdoor sites, Civic Yard, aims to create a green gateway for the area, provide event space for North Glasgow, create an active travel hub, and develop a circular construction 'lab' in partnership with Glasgow Tool Library. Agile City's approach to creating supportive environments for work and events and promoting sustainable and equitable ways of producing buildings and spaces makes it a strong contender for the Client of the Year award.