SCAPE SERIES 1 - MEANWHILE SPACES
VOLUME 1 - GLADSTONE COURT BY LUKE MORAN-MORRIS
Gladstone Court
Overview
SCAPE Scape is a creative discussion about unconventional living and working environments. Each series relates to a different alternative, exploring the possibilities that these spaces can offer.
SERIES 1 - MEANWHILE SPACES Series 1 of Scape will focus on meanwhile spaces. This includes properties that are being temporarily occupied by ‘guardians’ who live in buildings and protect them from squatters, misuse or disrepair. Meanwhile spaces can also encompass tenants or businesses reviving temporarily vacant premises during their transitional periods from one use to another. Using space creatively in this way, can offer solutions and opportunities for property owners, communities and tenants alike.
VOLUME 1 - GLADSTONE COURT Volume 1 ‘Gladstone Court’ emphasises the transient nature of property guardianship. In these images, taken of tenants in their temporary homes, the unexpected use of this residential care home becomes evident. The communal areas of the building are desolate and uncared for, their original purpose displaced by this temporary arrangement. However, by profiling the individuals and their personal environments, this collection throws light upon the possibilities that living as a guardian offers.
Scape
Gladstone Court
Series 1 - Volume 1
Luke Moran-Morris
Scape
Series 1 - Volume 1
Gladstone Court is a study of the individuals that lived as guardians of this property in 2012. It highlights the contradictions that exist in meanwhile living, most notably between its transient present, past and future. The dark and lifeless communal areas of the building allude to its shifted purpose and the fleeting nature of its current existence. The letterboxes presented at the beginning of each booklet likewise alludes to the discarded purpose of the building by presenting each room
in conformity with one another and with the building’s former identity. The images of the corridors and communal spaces offer a stark contrast to the characterful content of each room, supported by written insights into the occupants lives. Each of the twelve booklets focuses on a different room and its tenants. What is immediately apparent in this study, is the shifted priorities of the tenants, whose rent is not as significant an outgoing
as it ordinarily would be. This is evident in Booklet 8, where brothers Kim and Tarin – both tenants of Gladstone Court – describe the treasure hunt they have been working on, a career that would have been made impossible to them under the financial demands of ordinary living. The opportunities that meanwhile living has provided is evident in their zealous narration, and the featured presence of their hunt in these images. Shifted priorities are also apparent in Booklet 7, where hi-tech music recording equipment sits alongside a portable cooker, demonstrating the contradictions we all carry in what we hold to be most important.
than seeking a singular image to summarize each study. The collections are pieced together to reveal similarities between tenants and their idiosyncrasies. The result is an insightful collection that reveals the varied and rich tapestry of individuals who choose to become property guardians. - Sophia Georgiou
The combined portrait and documentary style used in the booklets offers deeper perceptions into the lives of these meanwhile tenants by presenting collections rather
Foreword
Foreword
Preface
Preface
Gladstone Court was the first place I lived in Brighton. I moved there in summer 2011, after finishing my degree. Alternative ways of living and travelling had been of interest to me throughout my degree and I carried out several projects about squatting, couch surfing and hitchhiking during my course. Guardianship appealed to me on this level, it also offered me flexibility with a short contract and affordable rent. The catch was that we could be given as
Gladstone Court
little as two weeks notice to move out if the property was sold. Gladstone Court is an ex-purpose-built retirement home, divided into large self-contained flats. It was left in the care of guardians like me, whose presence protected the building. During the time I lived there from August 2011 to May 2012, I set about recording this unusual living situation, discovering who lived behind each door.
I encountered all sorts of people living in this building, from carers to barmaids, carpenters, stylists, brewers, slouchers, musicians, hippies, even a couple of treasure hunters. This is a collection of portraits of the people that I lived with at Gladstone Court, pictures of the homes they made there and quotes from the discussions that I had with them. In April 2012, I was evicted from Gladstone Court for having an Australian couchsurfer staying with me.
Shortly afterwards, the rest of the guardians were asked to move out as well, as the building had been sold. - Luke Moran-Morris
Luke Moran-Morris
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Kim & Vicky
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“The ‘Ad-Hoc’ thing kind of allows you a bit more flexibility in what you do. It just takes that immediate pressure off to make money, and if you don’t have that immediate pressue you can put the energy that you would be putting into just making money to live, into doing something that you actually enjoy doing.” - Kim Heaton-Heather
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“The easing of [financial] pressure lets you live your values and that’s massive. I think a lot of people in Gladstone Court feel that, on one level or another. You can be creative with your work and you can be creative with how you want to make your money.” - Kim Heaton-Heather
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John & Vanessa
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“We wanted something a bit more sociable. This is good really, it’s saved us money, and its a bit more fun.” - Vanessa Salmon
“I had no choice really, all my friends had dispersed, had gone traveling so I had to move here but it worked out for the best.” - John Gudgin
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“I have a 9-5, its a job, just a job. i don’t particularly enjoy it but its cool...In my spare time over the last few months I’ve been business planning to set up a business with my friend which one day hopefully will happen. It’s gonna be a little microbrewery in St. Albans. Most evenings when I come back I research and work on that.” - John Gudgin
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“For my bread & butter job I go to work for Selfridges [the department store] in London and do some styling. They’ll give me a number of clothes in the morning and say ‘put them together’ and I have to style them to look nice, so thats what I do for money.” - Vanessa Salmon
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Lydia & Matt
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“I’ve lived with Ad-Hoc for a year or so now. Before that I was in a horrible house share paying a fortune for a very awkward living situation. My cousin had lived with Ad-Hoc in London and I had couchsurfed with several people who lived in Ad-Hoc buildings; mainly empty schools and once a church. A travelling friend and I decided it was a good option for us as we tended to flit between countries and being tied to a contract was a pain. We waited 2 weeks and then got placed in a huge flat in Preston Circus above a derelict shop. It wasn’t the best area, but it cost 1/4 of my wages which meant in Brighton I had money for the first time in years. We had been placed there because they’d had squatters before. Once the council had let it (about 8 months later) Ad-Hoc offered us Gladstone Court.” - Lydia Maclean 2
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“It was the most affordable method of getting out of London and down [to Brighton] to be with Lydia.“ - Matt Carrington
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“It was so nice to finally have a place of our own, just us. We made it such a beautiful home...I spent a week finishing work at 11pm and working on the flat til 5am putting new lino down...It was just such a free place.� - Lydia Maclean
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John & Becky
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“living in this cheap place it’s easier to be able to afford to make less money and do what you wanna do and have more time to do it in.” - John Purchase
“It wasn’t actually just the cheap living. we watched [the film] ‘Factory Girl’ and it was about Edie Sedgewick and Andy Warhol’s factory and having a creative hub.” - Becky Salmon
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“We all had a night in the pub talking about doing something like that [the factory] ourselves and it’s through that chat that [our friend] Lloyd found Gladstone Court. We were inspired enough to think maybe we could do that kind of thing here.” - Becky Salmon
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“I remember our first evening here, we all sat around drinking in here on the floor. we started thinking about what we could offer the place and what we could start up to make it really creative and communal. It’s nice to hear people singing and doing good projects and other creative stuff and not to see it [Gladstone Court] as being some sort of crack den, which some people probably do, just from the outside.” - Becky Salmon
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Robson & Hazel
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“Well basically I grew up in Nepal, my mum’s English, my dad’s Canadian, his parents are Chinese.” - Robson Yee
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“It’s cheap, also there wasn’t the commitment of trying to find a house with people because I was a bit unsure what I was doing at the time so it made a bit more sense.” - Robson Yee
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“I chose to live here because it’s cheap, and I wanted to live with Robson. I don’t really do that much at the moment.” - Samantha Hazel Harvey
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“People come here [to Brighton] for Uni, people come here for drugs, people come here for the hippies, people come here for the sea.� - Robson Yee
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Ed
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“I’d got a flat but it fell through because the credit check hadn’t come back very well. And then I was staying at a friends and my mate Kitch just said, oh there’s this old peoples home and i’m gonna move in there...the old people have gone and its £225 a month. I didn’t know it was Ad-Hoc or anything, I came round, got that it was cheap and I just moved in. I didn’t need a reference or anything, it was just get straight in wasn’t it?” - Edward Richards
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“I was studying for a Diploma in Science which I’ve just finished. other than that I sit around and watch a lot of football and go out all the time and get wrecked, basically. I do a lot of running and cycling, I’ve sold myself short there, I do compete in running and stuff so I’m quite athletic, as well as going out all the time [laughs].” - Edward Richards
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Adam & Dan
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“I’m from Brighton, one of the few that was born here. I had some friends that were living here who told me about it. It sounded like a fun place to live.” - Adam Purchase
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“During my time at Gladstone Court I have written a lot of music. Having the space and like-minded people nearby makes it a very creative place for me.� - Adam Purchase
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Tarin & Kim
1
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“I suppose the fact that you don’t feel entirely settled kind of helps you to get into a headspace that your going somewhere, That your moving on soon and going somewhere maybe better. Your not so tied down, I think thats really important.” - Tarin Heaton-Heather
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“I’m working with my brother Tarin to put together a project to raise valuable cargo that was sunk in WW1 and WW2. We’ve got a list of boats, 17 targets at the moment. and all the cargos are valuable enough to warrant salvaging. A lot of them are ferrous metals like nickel and tin. There are also some really exciting cargos of valuable metals, gold and silver, that’s pretty cool really. Our part of this is to raise the finance and put the project together we’re project managers. It’s going really well. Its not as ‘Indiana Jones’ as it sounds! The reality of it is loads of emails and lots or researching the vessels. We are probably gonna buy a big boat to do the salvage project from, so I’ve been researching how to buy the boat.” - Kim Heaton-Heather 6
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“Mostly my handwriting normally watch Inbetween that to be done, no structure.�
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I hunt for treasure. I like to work on and my meditation in the mornings and a film and read a book in the evenings. I guess anything else that seems to need particular set thing, not really much
- Tarin Heaton-Heather
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Sunny
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“My name is Peter Horsnell but my friends call me Sunny. I’m from, Northampton and Dorset, I grew up in the two places.” - Peter Horsnell
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“I have just trained as an ‘English as a Foreign Language’ teacher. I applied for and got a job in Brighton, which starts in a couple of months, and Mike [my housemate] said, fuck it, move down early, get a job in a pub, get a job doing something, why not live it up in Brighton.” - Peter Horsnell
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“[I got offered a charity fundraising job] in San Francisco. I lived there for 6 months and it was beautiful. The place was amazing, I was there for the summer, just a fantastic city to go to, lots of big parks and beautiful people. I met some of the best friends I’ve ever had. We worked for a week in Portland Oregon, which was a cool funky city, a week in New York which was really, really big, then 3 weeks in Chicago and then back to San Fran for a bit. but left because realised that I hated fundraising, I was really done with it.” - Peter Horsnell 6
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“What I really want to do is to go and teach English as a foreign language and I want to use that to travel, to keep on going.� - Peter Horsnell
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Andy
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“I was fed up of living [in another Ad-Hoc property] in Queens Square. I guess the only way to put it is that a couple of my flat-mates ended up not liking the cut of my jib. they made life very difficult for me.� - Andy Oldman
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“This is a port in a storm for me but I’m immediately a lot happier since I moved here, I’ve got all my boxes and my little space. I’m feeling much more like me.” - Andy Oldman
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“I spend a lot of time supporting my son Miles. He’s got autism. He’s just been at college, he needs organising. and for that I get carer’s allowance.” - Andy Oldman 7
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“[I’ve lived in] Glastonbury, London, Bristol, York, San Francisco California, Sheffield, London, the West Country, and then here; Brighton.” - Andy Oldman
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Mike
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“That was a gift from one of my clients from my old job in Surrey, his son painted it for his A-Levels. He was gonna chuck it out because he had so many pieces by his son in his house just filling up the loft and stuff.� - Mike Walsh
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“I started the team up when i moved down here in July 2011, they’re called Kemptown FC. We figured if we bought pink kit no one else would have one so we would only have to buy one [for home and away matches]. My friend designed the badge for us, It’s actually a little turtle, and the shell’s supposed to look like a football.” - Mike Walsh
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“I work in a craft beer pub, we specialise in different beers from all around the world, like little microbreweries. I’ve really got into my beers since I’ve been working there. For a month I had about 40 bottles, I was just waiting for my friends to come over, when they did we all drank them together and had a mini beer festival in the day.” - Mike Walsh
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“The rent is crazy cheap, what you get for the money is good. I’m not gonna mind moving out though, I look forward to living with people again. Everyone here does seem to have very different timetables.” - Mike Walsh
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Dee
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“I’ve lived in a lot of places, I was born in Lagos in Nigeria, we travelled around a lot when I was a kid but Brighton is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I’ve lived here for 5 years.” - Dwynwen O’Neill
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“I work in a pub, full time, I do that and then just kind of socialize. Brighton life. yeah I’ve fallen in love with it.” - Dwynwen O’Neill
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“My friends who I work with were living up the corridor when I first moved in and I heard of the flat via them.” - Dwynwen O’Neill
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