Arts + Infrastructure Part 1 Project 2011 David Holland Birmingham City University | UK The project is the result of a 7-month study of Stoke-on-Trent. An initial mapping exercise was undertaken to investigate the relationship between Stoke’s traditional ‘civic confines’ as described by author Arnold Bennett, and the modern-day distribution infrastructure that has become such a dominant characteristic of the city. It was concluded that infrastructure plays just as important a role in Stoke’s civic realm as its six town centres: civic space is being displaced from the civic cores to the city’s periphery where exists a landscape of roads, railways, and distribution depots.The site for the project sits within this globalised landscape of infrastructure and the programme for occupation attempts to exploit the latent value of this landscape, reappropriating it as civic realm.The project deals with issues of localism and globalism. Small-scale atelier studios provide a local platform for those finishing their education in arts & creative media. In contrast, the distribution depot and existing infrastructure, which operate within the global field, supercede the role of the traditional gallery space, providing a platform for exhibiting artists’ work. Tutor(s) Michael Dring