a building that has a lot of windows on it

Our Focus & Impact

Reawakening Dormant

Campus

Spaces

Background:

As more students and staff embrace remote learning and collaboration, many higher education and technology campuses are left with underutilised places. With fewer people on-site regularly, lecture halls, common areas, and office places that were once bustling now sit dormant.

However, these shifts present an exciting opportunity for universities and tech campuses alike to repurpose these places into immersive experience incubators—hubs for innovation, creativity, and community engagement.

These hubs, driven by students, staff, local creatives, and technologists, can reinvigorate campuses, offering new avenues for collaboration and hands-on experiences while also engaging the local community.

Objective:

To repurpose underutilised places in both higher education and technology campuses into vibrant immersive experience incubators. These places will serve as platforms for students, staff, and local creatives to collaborate on projects including creative art installations; immersive teaching, training and simulation environments; virtual reality (VR) environments; and augmented reality (AR) exhibits, benefiting both the campus and the surrounding community.

Key Activities:

  • Transforming Underutilised Places into Innovation Hubs: Convert unused lecture halls, office spaces, and common areas into immersive experience labs. These labs will act as multi-purpose environments where students, staff, technologists, and local creatives collaborate on developing immersive content like virtual experiences, interactive art installations, and tech-driven exhibits. Both universities and tech campuses can position these hubs as places for experimentation and development in areas like AR, VR, AI-driven collaboration tools, and digital storytelling.
  • Cross-Campus Collaboration: Engage students, faculty, and local professionals in co-creating immersive experiences that blend academic learning with real-world applications. For tech campuses, employees can partner with students to incubate tech-driven creative projects, such as new collaborative tools or immersive experiences for virtual meetings and remote work.
  • Community-Focused Programming: Open the incubator spaces to the broader community, inviting local residents, entrepreneurs, and creatives to participate in workshops, exhibitions, and interactive experiences. This engagement strengthens ties between the campus and its local area while offering both educational and entertainment opportunities for the public.
  • Sustainability and Flexibility: Design these places to be flexible and sustainable, allowing for continuous adaptation as technologies evolve. Both higher education and tech campuses can host pop-up immersive exhibits, rotating student- and staff-led projects, and interactive public events that keep the community engaged year-round.

Outcomes:

  • Revitalised Campus Spaces: Both higher education and technology campuses transform previously underutilised areas into dynamic, innovation-focused hubs that attract students, staff, and local creatives alike.
  • Enhanced Learning and Innovation: The immersive experience incubators offer students, faculty, and tech staff hands-on opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge in creative, real-world contexts. For tech campuses, these hubs can act as a proving ground for new collaboration tools or immersive digital workspaces, allowing staff to prototype and refine solutions that can then be scaled for broader use.
  • Stronger Campus-Community Ties: By opening these incubators to the public, universities and tech campuses build stronger relationships with their local communities, positioning themselves as cultural and creative leaders. This engagement fosters a sense of shared ownership and collaboration, transforming the campus into a hub for local culture and innovation.
  • Economic and Cultural Growth: The collaboration between students, faculty, technologists, and local creatives stimulates economic and cultural development. For tech campuses, these incubators also provide valuable testing grounds for new products and services, generating potential revenue streams and creating local job opportunities.
Reawakening SUPPORT

How We Support:

Create Space provides end-to-end services to help communities, town councils, landlords, and land owners revitalise their spaces, with a focus on entertainment and immersive leisure as key catalysts for transformation. 

Strategy

Our strategy support encompasses a comprehensive evaluation of the local market focussing on the entertainment and leisure landscape, mixed-use district maturity, and the potential opportunities.

Through market research, stakeholder engagement, and a thorough gap analysis, we provide a clear strategy to guide the reawakening of dormant spaces. The outcome is a strategic roadmap that reflects community needs and long-term goals for revitalisation.

Concept

Our concept development support spans district-wide planning, to individual sites, and in venue experiences. We delve into central themes, trends, and narratives that define the identity of reawakened spaces.

By weaving immersive storylines that highlight local history and culture, taking into consideration multiple datapoints on the potential audiences, we create a strong foundation for design, activities, and branding.

Our detailed guides, plans, and concept art ensure consistency across all elements, transforming any space into a unified and engaging experience for both residents and visitors.

Activate

The Activate support is designed to bring life and engagement back to town centres through a series of phased, community-driven activations.

These activities range from low-cost, short-term initiatives to more substantial, long-term projects that stimulate local economies, enhance public spaces, and build lasting community engagement.

This service ensures towns can test ideas, drive foot traffic, and foster a vibrant culture through immersive and creative experiences.

Incubate

We provide hands-on assistance in nurturing local entrepreneurs and developing modern entertainment and leisure offerings.

Through experience incubation programs, vendor sourcing, content partnerships, and project management, we ensure high-quality, timely execution of entertainment-led regeneration efforts.

This service supports the long-term vitality of new local businesses and ensures that projects are community-driven, community-supported, and economically viable.

Invest

We invest through our funds, attract seed and venture investment, coordinate corporate sponsorships, and broker public-private partnerships, ensuring projects are financially sustainable and attract long-term economic growth.

We start with feasibility assessments and advisory support to secure funding for reawakening projects including analysing cost-benefit scenarios, identifying funding opportunities, and developing business cases.

Attract

We attract investors, existing experience producers, and high-spending, repeat visiting, customers through our promotion and marketing support, positioning the space as a vibrant destination through investor networks, strategic branding, marketing campaigns, and event-driven strategies. 

In addition to building a strong local identity, we actively attract existing experience producers—such as entertainment providers, pop-up shows, and cultural events—to establish themselves in the space.

By promoting the space as a hub for immersive experiences, we drive footfall, enhance its reputation, and contribute to long-term economic growth and community engagement.

Improve

Our post-launch support focuses on performance monitoring and ongoing optimisation to ensure the long-term success of entertainment and leisure projects.

By gathering data and engaging stakeholders, we continually refine offerings and support local businesses through training programs and feedback loops, ensuring that regenerated spaces remain dynamic and responsive to community needs.