Ecbn london 2014 report

European Creative Business Network
& Dutch Creative Residency Network
REPORT / MAY 29-31, 2014
LONDON CREATIVE CENTRES STUDY TOUR

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Introduction: London’s rise as the world’s creative capital
Creative centres for cultural & social impact
Shoreditch Trust East Road
Somerset House
Southbank Centre
Ravensbourne
Trinity Buoy Wharf
Impact Hub
Creative centres for incubation & investment readiness
Club Workspace
Central Working
Microsoft Ventures Accelerator
Rainmaking Loft
Google Campus
Other important visits & debates
Greater London Authority
Hospital Club
The White Building & Crate
Provocation & debate with Tom Fleming
Provocation & debate with Charles Landry
Results of the Study tour according to the participants
List of all participants
INDEX

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Hyper connected, hyper busy, and hyper expensive
– London has become one of the world’s creative
capitals. Some of the world’s most innovative creative
products have begun in this city, including games
such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Singstar
or the well-known Harry Potter franchise, while film
production agencies in Soho – just one square mile
- can expect to win at least two Oscars each year on
average. This success has attracted big businesses
to town: Facebook, Google, Last.fm and Spotify all
have their European HQs in London.
The creative industries are the city’s second largest
sector, worth $32 billion per year and generating 16%
of the city’s annual gross value added (GVA). The city
has one in every six of the UK’s jobs in the creative
industries amounting to about 400,000.
But while these jobs are creative, they are also poorly
paid and insecure. With the average rent in Inner
London of £1500, how can Londoners working in
the creative industries cope, as the average monthly
creative salary is only £2000 a month? And how can
the creative businesses afford to lease space in
the centre?
This pressure has started to create a
“doughnutification” of the creative industries – smaller
creative businesses are pushed out into a ring around
the inner city. On the ECBN tour we saw some great
examples of organisations fighting these changes.
The Shoreditch Trust is making big money from the
crazy property prices and using it to support grass-
roots creativity while Impact Hub Westminster is
pushing the benefits that the creative industries can
bring to other sectors and provides a space for start-
ups that is close to government.
One of the participants told me that London was like
“a creative Disneyland” - so hyper it’s not real. One
guesses we will have to wait to see whether the pace
of change is too much for the city, and whether it
heads for a creative boom or a creative bust.
Callum Lee,
Deputy director
INTRODUCTION
London’s rise as the world’s creative capital.

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Shoreditch Trust works to reduce social and economic
disadvantage in Hackney (and similarly deprived
neighbourhoods) by supporting people to gain knowledge,
skills and opportunities so that they can:
• access the services and support they need
• participate fully in the workplace and in civil society
• gain confidence & achieve greater independence & resilience
• lead healthier, more fulfilling lives in their communities
The Trust has developed innovative models of engagement,
partnership, community planning and consultation in the belief
that their approach sets contexts and creates environments
within which people and communities can develop resilience
and aspiration. The Trust works to a person-centred approach.
This is applied across all of their programmes, working with
clients to tailor support according to individual need.Their
focus is on delivering equality of access and opportunities for
the people and communities that they serve.
We were received at one of theTrust’s projects, the Waterhouse
Restaurant, on the morning of the first day of our tour. Set up
by Shoreditch Trust in 2008, the canalside restaurant is one of
the area’s hidden gems and a great place to have breakfast,
lunch or dinner alike.
Being one of the Trust’s projects, the Restaurant is mostly
manned by trainees who have been out of the job market for a
while, or who have never had the opportunity to competitively
start a career. This programme helps them in learning the skills
they need in order to find work and take their next step.
The programme has been running for 8 years now, programme
director and Waterhouse chef tells us filled with pride. Through
the years, 8 different generations of trainees have entered and
left the Restaurant, most of them successfully accessing the
job market after finishing the programme.
After a delicious lunch, we were guided through the
neighbourhood to one of the Trust’s workspace building, by
their Director of Enterprise & Asset Development. On our way
to the Trust we were shown some examples of the Trust’s work
in the neigbourhood like the Shoreditch Park.
Ultimately, at the Trust’s Workspace Building, we were
received by one of their artists in residence who gave us first
hand information about how he found the Trust, what it is like
dealing with them and how their mission helps him find a space
to develop and grow at the difficult first stages of his career.
Units 1–2 Waterhouse,
8 Orsman Rd, London N1 5QJ, United Kingdom
Hilary Clayton,
Director of Enterprise & Asset Development
hilary@shoreditchtrust.org.uk
07581 231400
www.shoreditchtrust.org.uk/
CREATIVE CENTRES FOR CULTURAL & SOCIAL IMPACT
Somerset House
Somerset House is a spectacular neo-classical building in the
heart of London, sitting between the Strand and the
River Thames.
Ownership of the Somerset House was transferred from
the central government to a Trust to turn the building into a
multifunctional location for art, exhibitions, (open-air) concerts,
films, family workshops and free guided tours of the impressive
building. The Trust’s mission is to conserve and maintain
Somerset House to the highest standards and to develop
the site as a public space which is universally recognised as
a world class visitor attraction and centre of excellence for
culture and the arts.
As part of their aim to be a place of inspiration, the upper
levels of their building are configured as workspaces and
have been converted into high quality lettable spaces for
the creative industries. Somerset House is home to over 30
organisations, where private and public sector enterprises
enjoy the advantages of fully serviced flexible office solutions
in a unique community environment that supports growth. In
order to be able to open up this experience to a wider group of
business users, Exchange at Somerset House is able to offer
a flexible working environment at competitive rates.
Somerset House
Strand, London WC2R 1LA, United Kingdom
Central Desk:
+44 20 7845 4600
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre is a world-famous arts centre on the South
Bank of the Thames. Created in 1951 for the Festival of Britain,
Southbank Centre draws on its heritage as a festival site, with
art and activities inside and outside.
They offer a wide range of cultural events, including music,
dance, art, performance and spoken word events throughout
the year. Every year, thousands of musicians and artists
perform to millions of visitors, making this one of the most
popular cultural destinations in the country.
The Centre is committed to working with young, emerging and
established talent across the artistic community. They currently
support four Resident Orchestras, 14 Artists in Residence and
over 100 other artistic organisations. They also manage the
Arts Council Collection on behalf of Arts Council England and
curate the Hayward Touring Exhibition programme in venues
throughout the UK.
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX, United Kingdom
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/about-us

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Ravensbourne
Ravensbourne is a University for new media and design next
to the O2 Arena at the Southbank. In 2010 it started up an
incubator for (student) companies, that has free access to all
student facilities, such as high speed internet or even a TV-
studio. Access is also provided to activities, such as industry
events. Coaching is provided in numerous ways.
The Ravensbourne incubator now houses about 40 companies,
a little less than in the past, since they have been becoming
increasingly selective. Around 20% of the housed companies
is run by students.
Ownership and businessmodel
The incubator is part of the University and was set up as a
means to create jobs, innovation, valorisation and meanwhile
generating extra income for the University.
The programme has been thus far funded by ERDF (European
Regional Development Funds), although this funding will end
next year which makes it necessary for Ravensbourne to
change it’s businessmodel. One of the offered ideas, to have
the entrepreneurs pay for the facilities was met with too much
resistance as they are used to getting everything for free.
Another potential revenue stream would be partnerships with
the industry. Partnerships have been setup with Barclays
(bank), Ogilvy (advertising agency), Marks & Spencer
(Department store) and Mozilla (IT company). These partners
organize labs with the students and companies, offer
internships and employ students. However the partnership
contributions are at a low level and Ravensbourne wants to
increase these.
Ideally Ravensbourne would like to have half a million
pounds a year as a budget for the incubator, with Cambridge
University serving as best practice for them, their incubator
having already generated many successes in a sustainable
way to this day.
Ravensbourne
6 Penrose Way, Greenwich Peninsula,
London SE10 0EW, United Kingdom
Hatice Ozdemirciler
h.ozdemirciler@rave.ac.uk
+44 20 3040 3500
http://www.ravensbourne.ac.uk/
Trinity Buoy Wharf
Trinity Buoy Wharf is situated on the banks of the river Thames
in the Leamouth neighbourhood, on a peninsula surrounded
by the Thames and the river Lea. Trinity Buoy Wharf used to
be a terrain for manufacturing buoys and docking lightships.
It is located close to Canary Wharf, spanning 1 acre of land
with a lot of different types of buildings including the one and
only remaining lighthouse in London or an old Chain and Buoy
store, and some recently built container buildings, together
providing studio, exhibition, performance, rehearsal and event
space.
History
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC)
bought the area from the Corporation of Trinity House in
December 1988 because the wharf had stopped it’s activities.
The LDDC was in charge from 1981 to 1998, set up at the
time by the Thatcher government as a quango agency to
regenerate the eastern docklands. It was non-democratically
chosen thereby diminishing the role of the local planning
authorities that would normally take care of this.
The area was up to be redeveloped, it’s realization in the
hands of the LDDC. The LDDC then put up a competition in
1996 to find a manager whom would turn the then derelict
industrial site into a creative quarter, and it was Urban Space
Management that won the bid. Once this was settled, the
LDDC was abolished and the free hold was turned over to the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Urban Space Management then received a long term lease
of 125 years, that would be given to the Trinity Buoy Wharf
Trust, which in turn gave a lease hold to the Trinity Buoy Wharf
Space Management company to manage the terrain. This was
done for the symbolic amount of 1 pound.
The LDDC’s permission statement towards Urban Space
Management was quite flexible in it’s wording, which allowed
USM to part ways from the habitual planning regulations that
stated fix percentages of space utilization. Instead of aiming
for a more regular scheme composed of residences and some
art spaces, Urban Space Management chose to completely
develop it for arts and creative uses instead with just some
space left for less creative offices.
Officially Trinity Buoy Wharf posesses only 8 live/work studios,
but in reality there are at least 20 people living there. Moreover
they acquired multiple temporary planning permissions, that
will probably outlast their original period of validity simply
because the council never inspects the Wharf. Even so, in
case the council would argue that one of their developments
would not be in accordance with the wharf’s planning permit,
they would probably never be able to legally disapprove of it.
Nonetheless, Urban Space Management is a quite socially
aware organization and they will not abuse the freedom they
have been given. It is this freedom after all that has procured
the area’s development in it’s quite unique, flexible and
organic way.

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The tenants.
Trinity Buoy Wharf houses about 190 artists and creative
entrepreneurs in more than 110 studios and at the time of
ECBN’s visit, there was a new complex of containers being
built. Besides the studios, it hosts temporary and regular
exhibitions, educative workshops and a diner and cafe. They
also own a space for more commercial and temporary uses,
such as film location, weddings or company events.
Price levels vary, as art users get lower prices than commercial
rentals. In net floor space, the square meter price goes up to
300 euro per square meter (including service costs and VAT).
The Trust receives 25% of the rental income that is generated
and gives that to local arts projects.
Trinity Buoy Wharf
64 Orchard Pl, London E14 0JY, United Kingdom
Main Desk: +44 20 7515 7153
www.trinitybuoywharf.com/
Visit Trinity Buoy Wharf

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Impact Hub
The Impact Hub Westminster currently houses 520 members
and is part of a network of 51 Impact Hubs across 5 continents.
The Hub has 4 centres in London, which all started out quite
individually and grew out to be full-grown co-working spaces.
In the past years they have been doing a lot of double work,
so nowadays they are looking for more collaboration with each
other by, for instance, communicate from one central office
thus lowering their personnel costs and work. The Impact Hub
focuses on the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. This is
a much broader view than the normal view on businesses as
having a single bottom line, being financial results.
The Impact Hub Westminster has 54.000 visitors in 2013
participating in hundreds of events. About 80% of their events
are relevant (and accessible) to the members of the Impact
Hub, the resting 20% is organized at the Hub’s location by
external parties. Only 5% of the total events are organized by
the Impact Hub itself, making the majority of the even user
generated. The members of the Westminster Hub have
access to 800 square metres of work and event spaces.
Range of activities
The Impact Hub Westminster focuses on the full life cycle
of entrepreneurs, from developing their first idea to impact
scaling through investors. It offers coworking spaces,
accelerator programmes, access to angel investors, VC’s and
crowdfunding platforms and actively works to influence policy
to create more opportunities for social entrepreneurs, like new
tax breaks for small size investments.
Concretely it offers access to work and meeting spaces 7 days
a week. A host (professional or volunteer) is present at all
times. It also offers (cost saving) services through a range of
partners and affiliates.
Many events are organized to stimulate members to meet
each other, innovate and cooperate. Every Thursday at 16.00
for example a ‘tea and scones’ break is organized. It’s informal
and very popular.
They have two largescale programmes funded by the EU to
accelerate growth.
The Hub Launchpad is a 4-year programme with a budget of £
1.5 million from the EU, and private investors have committed
to the same amount. It consists of a 14 week incubation
programme with each time a specific theme, such as public
procurement or renewable energy.
A second programme is targeted at bringing existing
entrepreneurs into the next growth phase. It is an accelerator
programme that offers ‘bitesize’ workshops and coaching, that
allows entrepreneurs to combine their growth activities with
their regular work in the company. The programme is funded
through the ERDF (European Regional Development Funds).
Ownership and businessmodel
Impact Hub Westminster is a limited company owned 40% by
the borough of Westminster (local governmental body) and
60% by investors. Turnover in 2013 was 1.2 million pounds,
over 1.5 million euros.
This breaks down in to £ 650.000 made on memberships,
which makes the turnover per square meter reach up to €
1.000. Another £ 350.000 was made on events and the
remaining £ 200.000 on EU and other funding.
The Impact Hub has always been full throughout it’s three years
of existence, but it currently sees the amount of coworking
spaces grow spectacularly with many of those undercutting
prices. This creates bigger competition, but as the director of
the Impact Hub says many of these new spaces deliver much
less value and activities.
Members pay by the hour because this offers flexibility.
Members can choose between 5 levels:
30 h/m costs £30 per month per person
50 h/m
100 h/m
200 h/m
unlimited h/m costs £400 per month per person
Since the new competition will have an effect on the prices
in the market, the Impact Hub intends to enlarge the income
generated out of partnerships.
It is now working on a partnership with Yammer, a private
social network that helps employees collaborate across
departments, locations and business apps.
Another focus is on creating better links to impact investors,
for example the Atonic Investment Network, a network of high
net worth individuals who each invest at least £ 10 million in
this fund for social entrepreneurs. In total the fund is worth
over £ 10 billion.
Impact Hub
1st floor, New Zealand House,
80 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4TE, United Kingdom
Main Desk: +44 2071 486 720.
Mathew Denham:
matthew.denham@hubwestminster.net
+44 7769 297 934
http://westminster.impacthub.net/

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Club Workspace
The Workspace Group owns around a 100 buildings in Central
London, usually a couple of buildings being in each other’s
vicinity. They strive for a maximum of 95% occupancy, since this
is the optimal level to keep churn (renewal) and accommodate
new companies (at higher rates). They offer space exclusively,
no services. There’s no reception, no mail service in the
buildings and the doorbell is connected to a (mobile) number
of the company. Only 100 people staff the Workspace Group,
head office and local offices included. That’s one employee
per building. They have developed the ‘Club Workspace’
concept for coworking, which is now operational in 7 clusters
in the city, with at least 5 more planned to open up.
We have visited the very first Club Workspace that opened and
were told that the new ones have developed further and have
bigger variety in types of workspaces although they operate
in the same way. There are different kinds of workspaces
with different types of seats (from desk to kitchen seats) and
teamrooms are also provided. A ‘nosy’ manager is at the core
of the concept, who is in charge of connecting people and
stimulating collaboration.
There are different membership options at Club Workspace.
The cheapest model is 3 days access to 1 club, and the most
expensive one is a dedicated desk for £ 400, while another
interesting offer is unlimited access to all clubs without a
permanent desk for £ 300 per month.
Club Workspace
31 Clerkenwell Close, EC1R 0AT
Andrea Kolokasi, Head of Club Workspace
andrea.kolokasi@workspace.co.uk
+44 20 7369 2366
http://club.workspacegroup.co.uk/
Central Working
Central Working is a young player in the field of coworking and
incubation. However they are growing fast and hope to open 7
more locations in the near future. At present their organization
consists of 11 people already housing 900 people forming
many companies, including Angry Birds.
Their coworking concept is called Escalator and focusses on
networking, connecting and sharing knowledge amongst their
tenants, by for exampleorganizing a monthly party.
Prices for a membership differ from £ 99 for 40 hour access
to £ 350 for unlimited access and £ 450 for a permanent desk
as a resident.
Central Working
69-89 Mile End Road, E1 4TT
http://www.centralworking.com/
Impact Hub
CREATIVE CENTRES FOR INCUBATION
& INVESTMENT READINESS

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Microsoft’s Ventures accelerator is located within Central
Working Whitechapel. They own a dedicated corner in a
shared space with many other flexible companies, as well as
Barclay’s Accelerator for creative businesses.
Microsoft’s London Accelerator started in july 2013 and is
managed by a very motivated team. They have designed a
14 week condensed incubation programme that has so much
content that it would normally take two years to complete. It
includes workshops, personal coaching, access to Microsoft
(developer) products and access to investors.
Happily the main director and management find startups to be
very important. Their selection criteria are a strong team and
a concrete, ready product. The build-up of the team is most
important to them, as they don’t believe in companies that are
only driven by one entrepreneur.
Their businessmodel is simple: they beg for money at Microsoft
UK, they don’t take an equity share from the companies.
Wesley Knowles, Operations Manager
a-weskno@microsoft.com
+44 758 389 7842
https://www.microsoftventures.com/accelerators/london.aspx
Rainmaking Loft
Rainmaking Loft is a network of creative hubs located in Berlin,
London and Copenhagen. The UK location owns 10,000ft2
in the iconic St Katharine Docks - in the heart of London. It
features open plan workspace with 180 desks and a 150
person event venue. The location just got started, and is now
open for applications.
It hosts accelerator programmes such as Startup Bootcamp
Global by FinTech. Startupbootcamp is a 3 month acceleration
program that focuses on exposing and connecting startups to
our expanding community of top-level mentors and advisors.
At the end of the program, startups get a chance to pitch to
top angel investors and venture capitalists for funding at the
Investors’ Demo Day.
Unfortunately, we were unable to visit this location.
Google Campus
Campus is a community of early stage startups, backed by
Google in collaboration with some partners. Officially launched
on March 29th 2012, Campus provides free event spaces, fast
wifi, subsidised desk space and a home for the vibrant startup
community in East London.
The premises
The basement houses a cafe, run by previously mentioned
Central Working, which is free to use and open to all
entrepreneurs. . Since August this year, this floor of Campus
has been home to London’s largest public mobile device lab.
Powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, the Campus Device
Lab includes over twenty new phones and tablets for startups
to test their apps across operating systems and form factors.
In addition to tablets and smartphones running Android (2.2 -
4.4) and iOS, the lab includes a document camera for sharing
mobile demos with a larger group.
The ground floor hosts a 140-seater event space, which anyone
can book and use to run their startup event at Campus. Levels
1 and 2 house Techhub, an established London co-working
space. On Level 3 Campus has rotating startup accelerator
programs, hosting early stage teams for an intense 3 month
period of rapid-prototyping and mentorship. Level 4 hosts
multiple partners and startups. It is home for the Seedcamp
team who specialise in scouting and mentoring early stage
startups across Europe, as well as some of their portfolio
companies. Also on level 4 are Coadec and Startup Weekend
who very actively support the wider startup community in the
UK and the rest of Europe. The fifth floor is a Google floor,
where Campus staff and Googlers who volunteer at Campus
come to work. And finally there is an open rooftop deck - which
is mostly just for fun, when the sun is shining.
The community
An increasing variety of startups engage with Campus. At the
start of 2013, about 63% of Campus startups were involved
in one of three industries: Technology, Communications and
Entertainment. This is diversifying rapidly, as is shown in the
image on the next page.
Financing
Campus startups have by now raised at least £ 34M in self-
reported funding, with £ 27M of that from formal startup funding
sources such as venture capital investment, accelerator
programmes, government grants and angel investors. The
median amount raised from these sources is approximately
£75,000, compared to a median amount of £3,000 from other
sources. The overall funding estimates are conservative in the
context of the wider Campus community, given that the survey
only covered about 15% of the Campus member base.

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Self-financing is still the major funding avenue pursued by
startups (60% of startups). There are many small startups out
there which are only ideas at this stage, and they have raised
small amounts of private funding just to explore those ideas.
It is hoped that Campus Investor Office Hours, launched in
2013, will encourage and enable more startups to successfully
pursue other funding avenues as they develop their ideas.
Google Campus
4-5 Bonhill St, EC2A 4BX
Bruno Panara, Host department
brunopanara@google.com
https://www.campuslondon.com/
Google Campus London

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In London, the policies for cultural and creative industries
(CCIs) are coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA)
under direct supervision of the mayor of London.
Their cultural department has a small budget of £ 2.3 million
per year which they mostly to plug gaps. They only intervene
when they spot a chance of economic gain to create jobs and
economic growth. Other city organizations focus at different
goals, such as improving skillsets of entrepreneurs and
cultural actors.
The GLAcultural department focuses at the following activities:
> Fashion Week
recently having had a big growth in men’s fashion.
> Film,
to make the City of London filmfriendly for producers. For
example they recently made it possible for Tom Cruise to land
in a helicopter on Trafalgar Square for a movie recording.
> Games,
mainly through the London Games Festival.
> The London Design Festival.
The GLA pays for the basic costs of the team, with which
the festival generates over £ 90 million in sales for design
companies.
There’s also a programme for creative workspaces, artist
spaces and to boost cultural and creative skills in schools.
Goal of GLA is to have 220.000 apprenticeships for youngsters
each year.
All these events have to be world class and attract attention
from around the world.
Adam Cooper, Senior Cultural Strategy Officer to the mayor
also tells us that recently a debate has started about the
construction of 230 highrise towers in London, 130 already
being built and a 100 more have permits granted.This will
surely have a big impact on the city.
City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, SE1 2AA
Adam Cooper, Senior Cultural Strategy Officer,
adam.cooper@london.gov.uk
020-7983 4580
https://www.london.gov.uk/
Hospital Club
As the story goes, Paul Allen (Mirosoft) and Dave Stewart
(Eurhythmics) were having a drink one night in Covent Garden
when they spotted a boarded-up and lonely-looking building
over the street. Enquiry revealed it had once been a hospital.
Between them, the plan was hatched to revive this once
elegant shell and transform it into a hub of creativity, full of
people, ideas, music and life. Paul bought the former St Paul’s
Hospital in 1996, and opened its doors as The Hospital Club
in September 2004.
Located in the heart of Covent Garden the 60,000 square
feet space provides a platform for the Hospital Club’s many
parts. It involves a members’ club for those in the creative
industries, an award-winning events company, a venue for
some of London’s most chic and exclusive events, exhibitions,
installations and parties.
More on the club’s activities and history.
The Club is a four story, exclusively decorated venue located
in Covent Garden. The members are classy, affluent people
who come to the Club to enjoy it’s top range offer in drinks
and food, as well as the relaxed yet extraordinary atmosphere.
Thanks to the invertention of one of the European Creative
Business Network’s members, we were granted entrance to
this very exclusive venue. The evening started with a fun jazz
event, with fantastic cocktails and good music followed up
by a delicious dinner at the club’s restaurant, featuring some
delicious traditionally British dishes, including one of the best
fish and chips in town.
Hospital Club
24 Endell St, London WC2H 9HQ, United Kingdom
General Enquiries:
reception@hospitalclub.com
+44 20 7170 9100
http://www.thehospitalclub.com/
OTHER IMPORTANT VISITS & DEBATES

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The White Building is London’s a small, autonomous creative
hub for art, technology and sustainability located in the
Hackney Wick’s creative Powerhoouse „The Queen’s Yard“.
It’s an incubator for discursive and innovative thought, it serves
as a testing ground and creative lab for artists and creatives
whose work engages with technology.
The centre is anchored by a residency programme that is
unique amongst UK public institutions, offering opportunities
for emerging and mid-career artists to produce new work on an
international platform. It comprises a residency studio, which
doubles up as a temporary exhibition space, a flexible event
space, studios for creative practitioners and CRATE Brewery
& Pizzeria – which is regularly voted as one of the UK’s best
independent breweries and eateries.
The White Building is a partnership with the London Legacy
Development Corporation. SPACE sponsor Bloomberg is the
White Building’s major programme sponsor, supporting the
residencies and the People Power schools programme under
the Bloomberg ONcollaboration.
CRATE on the other hand is Hackney Wick’s first craft brewery
and pizzeria, situated canal-side in The White Building. Built,
owned and operated by locals, the converted industrial interior
is one of a kind and has been made with reclaimed materials
from around the Wick. Since launching in late July 2012, the
unique look and delicious offerings have received national
and international acclaim, with ZAGAT voting CRATE one of
London’s Hottest New Bars.
During the ECBN’s visit to The White Buiding, we received a
tour of CRATE’s brewery, which has positioned itself as one of
the strongest, small scale breweries in Europe exporting beer
to all of the UK, Germany and a few other European countries.
General inquiries:
info@cratebrewery.com
+44 20 8525 4330
http://www.cratebrewery.com/
Provocation & debate with Tom Fleming
On the first day of our tour we met with Tom Fleming, a
consultant and academic specialising in research and support
for the cultural and Creative Industries sector at all levels,
plus on broader issues of culture and creativity for cities
and regions who has led a range of research and strategy
programmes on behalf of regional development agencies and
high profile national bodies, as well as undertaken significant
international work.
Tom talked about his prediction of the economical future of
Europe, as well as about the role of the creative industry in
that future. He thinks that Europe, understood as a union of
countries, is history now. Instead of countries, metropoli will
soon become the economic motors of the union. After all,
companies and individuals choose their location based on
the city’s opportunity climate, and not nearly as much on the
country in which the city is located. This tendency is only
increasing in the internet age.
Part of this projection involves that the boundaries between
countries will soon disappear, and the in between zones will
become no one’s land. Rural areas will only serve a purpose
in the production of primary resources like food, energy and
drinking water.
This, in turn, will also inevitably lead to a new kind of economic
and personal traffic between the cities. Within these projected
knowledge powerhouses that cities will become, the role of
the creative industries is to find partners and work towards
innovating in a series of worldwide scale problems, such
as: renewable energy, better healthcare, population growth,
immigration, clean water, unemployment, the onset of big
data, climate change and global conflicts of any
ideological kind.
Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy
Tom Fleming, tom@tfconsultancy.co.uk
http://www.tfconsultancy.co.uk/

16
Provocation & debate Charles Landry
Charles Landry gave us a lecture right in the Borough next to
Tower Bridge, a very lively market with many high quality micro
restaurants.
Charles starts out by telling us that London has become
extremely popular as a place to live for the ultra-rich. A
survey among this group showed they highly appreciated the
business climate, quality of life, education and the language.
This is becoming more and more visible in the city now.
Great numbers of apartments are being built and bought by
rich from around the world: Asians, Arabs, (South) Americans
and Africans. An apartment in the centre recently sold for €
25 million and Mayfair, the area where Christie’s and other art
dealers are located has become the mecca for hedge funds
and their managers.
This situation forces creatives to leave because of the rapidly
rising prices. They now have to live further and further away
from the centre and are mainly moving east, into areas like
Hoxton or Dalston. London is also running out of old buildings,
and it becomes more and more important to question how
to protect the creatives and non rich from the effects of
gentrification.
On the other hand there’s an international debate going on
about the importance of the contribution of cultural and creative
industries (CCIs) to the sustainability and inclusiveness of
society, for example at the ASEM-conference in October 2014
in Rotterdam, in which 50 cultural ministers of Asia and Europe
meet to discuss this topic.
To understand the contribution of the CCIs to society you have
to look at what the creative sectors actually do and how does
this affect the economy. Music for example is all about sound.
This expertise is great for enjoyment, but it is also of value
when you are drilling for oil in a sand bed at the bottom of the
ocean.Charles’s research already proved this in the eighties.
One third of the employees in mining companies were actually
part of the creative industry, working with 3D-visualization and
other creative (gaming) techniques.
According to Charles, creativity has become a necessity for
cities just like water and electricity. He has difficulty in seeing
the industry as apart from the rest, as he thinks of creativity
as this basic commodity for all of the other industries, without
which they could not prosper.
Recently Charles has written another one of his short,
inspiring books on the creative industries titled “THE ORIGINS
& FUTURES OF THE CREATIVE CITY”

17
A short summary of his theory would be:
City 1.0 is one that has all the facilities and urban planning in
place, but has no heart.
City 2.0 is one that hires star architects to create a spectacular
city and focuses at city branding to create more of an attraction
and relationship with a city.
City 3.0 is one that is at the next level by co creating the city
with it’s people. They are no longer seen as consumers, but as
prosumers, who are very capable of creating new initiatives.
These cities try to minimize rules and optimize the flexibility
in their accommodation of needs and wishes of their people.
An example of a city 3.0 would be Helsinki, which got rid
of much regulation after a bottom up initiative to declare a
certain “restaurant popup-day”. On this day, everybody who
wanted to could open up a restaurant wherever they liked: in
their living room or in the park, street, etc. The initiative was
a great success and led the city into re-evaluating it’s long
list of regulation on restaurants and catering. These culinary
initiatives are now being accommodated the best as possible.
Also in Helsinki, another initiative got started which allowed
heavy users of health care to decide on the load of provided
health care themselves. Instead of a growth in usage of health
care, this resulted in a decrease of usage of health care of
60%.
Charles researches the level of a city through it’s creative city
index. “These days cities are like fashion stars...!” he says.
On our request Charles advises us on the next destination
of the ECBN/DCR Study Tour. He finds Copenhagen and
Malmö very interesting and also Barcelona, which has been
awarded the title of European Capital of Innovation. He directs
us to Manel San Roma, who is the Chief Information Officer
in Barcelona and played a big role in innovation in the local
government.
As both Charles Landry and Tom Fleming pointed out, the key
in developing a successful city is not only in trying to keep
graduated talent.The attraction and re-attraction of talent
from outside a city is very important for the further success.
According to Landry the main goal should become setting up
an imaginative environment, then communities will arise and
produce more talents by themselves.
Another important lesson learned is that nowadays cities
matter more than nations. Charles refers to Benjamin R.
Barber’s book: “If Mayors ruled the World”. People choose to
be in a certain city. They have a bigger emotional connection
with this place than the country it is in.
Comedia
Charles Landry,
charleslandry@comedia.org.uk
http://comedia.org.uk ,
http://charleslandry.com/

18
RESULTS OF THE STUDY TOUR
according to the participants
On Saturday afternoon, the last day of our the tour we have
asked all participants to share with the group what they take
home as the most important learning point. Some people also
add concrete plans or wishes to follow up.
Jeroen Carels
BIM
The most important thing Jeroen takes home is the importance
of the content of the building. It’s not about the stone and
mortar, but about the programming and mix of companies.
The energy at the Microsoft Accelerator impressed him most.
He wishes for the DCR-creative centres to cooperate more,
first great step forward would be to open each the flexspaces
of these different spaces to each other’s entrepreneurs.
Adrie Lesuis
BINK 36
Adrie finds most important the fact that we have learned a
great deal of London together and also shared our own best
practices. Concretely he has new inspiration on nudging
entrepreneurs to connect them more actively and to create a
stronger community out of the 350 companies in the Bink36.
Johan de Jong
Blokhuispoort
Johan works at a social housing corporation on all the
abnormal buildings they own. He built a creative centre out
of an old prison in Leeuwarden. He didn’t see too many new
models, but is very positive about the trip and cooperation
opportunities between the participants and other creative
centres.
Maarten Hendriks
Little Mountain
Maarten was amazed by the scattered creative centres
popping up all around London. My focus with Little Mountain
and Founded By All was to create the perfect space, most oft
he directors seem a lot more interested in the businessmodels.
Most important for me was the insight by Tom Fleming on the
growing importance of cities and the diminishing importance
of the nation. I miss the connection of hubs in London,
cooperation inside and outside your building is very important.
Paul Barendregt
Hooghiemstra
Paul has three buildings in Utrecht, which he now calls the
Brooklyn of Amsterdam. Seeing the size of London and the
proximity of Amsterdam and Utrecht, it’s smart for Utrecht
to position itself more smartly as being part of the Dutch
metropolitan region with unique qualities because of a high
quality of life.
Important learning point for is that all organizations seem to
work with a membership model instead of renting out square
meters.
Paul would like to cooperate more with other (Dutch) creative
centres.
Marian Matusak
Kosice 2013
Marian has read Charles Landry’s papers and found it great
to meet him in real life again. Most important result for him is
the insight that ownership of “the place” where people meet
to cooperate and colaborate doesn’t matter and the most
important message is thatcollaboration leeds to innovation*,
having strong impact on “the place” whether it is the (unused)
building, neighborhood, or the whole city. It’s all about creative
spillovers, measuring change and (reattracting) talent.
Richard Hoving
Dutch Chamber of Commerce
Richard Hoving, Chamber of Commerce the Netherlands,
national department to stimulate growth and innovation
Richard found the tour very interesting and has had intensive
talks with each participant of the tour. He sees demand and
opportunities for a partnership with the Dutch Creative Centres
to create a growth programme for the entrepreneurs in the
buildings. He will discuss this in his team and hopes to be able
to present the outcome at the next DCR-kennisdag.
Liesbeth Jansen
Marineterrein
Liesbeth started her company Leftbank 3 years ago after
18 years of building up the Westergasfabriek. She now has
a new unique place to develop a marinebase in the heart of
Amsterdam. She found the Study Tour very interesting, het
head is overflowing with all the input, she now has even more
questions about how the economy works in London. How are
creatives able to live among all the rising prices. Charles’ and
Tom’s contributions were very interesting. She enjoyed the
White Building, would have loved to explore the area and learn
what’s happening,also in relation to the Olympic Quarter.
She enjoyed the time tigether very much, found it very valuable
and hopes to meetup with eachother more often, maybe DCR-
members can organize monthly site visits to eachother’s
buildings.

19
Niels Moshagen
Note Disrupt
Niels has been greatly inspired by all the different models and
concepts we have seen. Most important he finds that there’s
no one perfect way to manage a creative centre and stimulate
the entrepreneurs. You have to keep experimenting.
Peter Polman
Note Disrupt
Peter is co-founder of Smart Creation with Niels. They have
just given over their seat on the board of the co-working space
to the new generation. Their own interest is now in starting
up an accelerator for product based start-ups in the creative
industry in the Enschede region. As the University of Twente
already has an accelerator program for start-ups in the high-
tech industry, we think that one focussing on creative talent will
open up interesting possible crossovers.
The region has trouble in keeping the talent it educates at the
university. After graduation a lot of people move to places in
the west because they think it has a way better social and
working climate. London showed me that a strong focus on the
creative industry can do al lot for a city. Personally I think that a
renewed focus on this creative industry in Enschede could be
the key in developing a successful city.
Another thing I learned is that you don’t get there overnight.
There are a lot of ingredients, small and big, that influence
your success. The process of growing the right culture in a
successful accelerator program is far more important than
most of the functional facilities it’s providing. An energetic
host making the right connections. Successors from the field
providing real mentoring and coaching, other than talking
to the usual business developers who swarm around new
startups. Creating a flexible business model that can adapt
to the start-ups needs. Let VC’s pitch what they have to offer,
instead of the other way around.
Thom Aussems
Strijp-S
Thom’s most important learning point is the ways of connecting
people, start-up’s need (a bigger) network. Thom sees the
memberships as a model of the middle ages, because it’s a
model that focusses at exclusion. He sees open innovation as
the future and says it’s crucial to accommodate this, so that
industry, education, government and (start-up) entrepreneurs
find each other.
Sietske Aussems
Strijp-S
Sietske found it very interesting to see the huge differences
between London and Berlin and feels more at home in Berlin,
because she thinks the power of money and the focus on
businessmodels is too big in London. She sees a lack of
passion and a lack of bottom-up initiatives in London.
Karol Rohrer
Tabacka
Karol is co-founder of Tabacka, an old tobacco factory turned
into a cultural space with a great programme and selling
loads of beer. Most interesting for him was to see the creative
centres focussed at social impact and learn how to support
social impact entrepreneurs.
Ivan Debnar
The Spot
Ivan has run The Spot, a creative accelerator in Bratislava for
2 years and is now talking to entrepreneurs who want to start
two franchises. He found it very interesting to meet everybody
and get to know many new people. Most important insight for
him was the possibility to influence the neighborhood outside
your building.
Hilde van Wijk
Urban Resort
Hilde is responsible for renting out several locations together
with Marijke. They have recently made a transition with their
biggest building the Volkskrantgebouw, from a creative centre
with club to adding a hotel. It was most interesting for her to
look at the full spectrum of cultural and creative centres. She
wants to read Landry’s book on Cities 3.0 and says we all
belong to our buildings, but because of this trip also to each
other.
Merijn Foet
Urban Resort
Merijn is part of the financial team at Urban Resort and found
it important to step out of the treadmill of daily work in order
to be inspired. He found the program had too much focus on
economics. Merijn’s interest is to stimulate the underground
and out of the ordinary culture in a city. His goal, is that the
organization of Urban Resort is able to survive financially in
a healthy way, just treading above water, so as to provide a
platform for other initiatives and artists where success is not
measured by money alone.

20
Marijke Eckhardt
Urban Resort
Marijke found it interesting to learn about new business
models, such as membership programmes. Also the Impact
Hub had very clever models, like their franchising and IT-
systems. She realized it is important as an organization to
focus on what makes you unique, as there is getting more and
more competition. The most inspiring location visisted to her
was the White Building and that whole area. Furthermore she
liked that we met Charles Landry and the way he talked about
gentrification and the downsides of it.
Leo van Loon
ECBN & DCR
Leo has transferred ownership of the Creative Factory to the
City of Rotterdam last year. He now focusses even more at
supporting creative centres around Europe and battling youth
unemployment with his initiative Buzinezzclub. He found it
amazing to see the creative coworking spaces mushrooming
in London. Real estate has become very expensive, but even
in London coworking spaces are economically viable. He was
very interested in the way the Microsoft accelerator and the
Impact Hub focus at the full lifecycle of entrepreneurs with
different programmes.
Leo found it an amazing study tour and was very happy with
the open and collaborative atmosphere in the group. It was a
great way to be inspired by many different centres in London
and also get to know each other a lot better.
5 years ago he founded the Dutch Creative Residency
Network together with Liesbeth en Willie and now the network
has grown into 32 members. He is looking forward to see
the next 5 years of DCR and ECBN and hopes new Board
Members will step in the board of DCR to further develop and
grow the DCR-network.

21
NETHERLANDS
MARINETERREIN
Liesbeth Jansen
ECBN & DCR
Leo van Loon
Callum Lee
Adrian Sneeuw
LITTLE MOUNTAIN
Maarten Hendriks
NOTE DISRUPT
Niels Moshagen
Peter Polman
BINK-36
Mr. Adrie drs Lesuis
HOOGHIEMSTRA
Paul Barendregt
BLOKHUISPOORT
Johan de Jong (dir. Fryslan)
STRIJP-S
Sietske Aussems
Jack Hock
Thom Aussems
BIM
Jeroen Carels
06 51 53 86 30
URBAN RESORT
Hilde van Wijk
Merijn Foet
Marijke Eckhardt
Laurens van Rens
KVK
Richard Hoving
Me We
Winand Singh
SLOVAKIA
Kosice 2014
Marian Matusak
TABACKA
Karol Rohrer
The Spot
Ivan Debnar
PARTICIPANTS

Ecbn london 2014 report

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