A Tale of Two Cities

Melbourne is an example of a city that used to have good cracks. From the late 90s until around 2015 it was defined by the small ideas and businesses that took seed in the CBD. There were always big leases and big tenants in big buildings, but in the cracks between or within those buildings, there were low rents, strange rooms and highly innovative ideas. The Melbourne cracks were so exceptional that they made the city into a brand. There is no Tourism Victoria ad where the lead character gasps in surprise as she finds herself – and her red ball of string – in a glorious new skyscraper or vast public realm. Instead, she is lost in a granular, idiosyncratic and unpredictable world.

Sydney doesn’t have good cracks for many reasons: There is so much money. There are so few landlords and they are so rich that they generally don’t have the need or will to use cracks. The beaches are so beautiful that Sydneysiders don’t even need to look at the cracks and there is no real reason to make them beautiful. The Sydney brand is a Baz Luhrmann campaign: perfect, symmetrical, impossibly beautiful and arguably quite boring. Like talking to a model.

EDDY Is a Giant Crack

Over the past 12 months, Right Angle has been working on EDDY – a reactivation of derelict retail and back-of-house space in Sydney’s Central Station. The project is an unusually large and rare crack that has opened for the while, as large-scale building works are completed for a new metro station. For this time, space that might otherwise have been left vacant or leased by to unremarkable retailers has been given to Right Angle to curate. Our strategy is to fill these cracks with the most fertile local retail and cultural seeds we can find, providing opportunities for growth to people who can make the most of the situation, both for themselves and the city they serve.

Through the process of producing EDDY we’ve thought a lot about cracks and have some observations on how to maximise their benefit to the city.

Start Well to End Well

How we think about value upfront determines the quality of outcomes in under-utilised spaces. A space might be unloved, hidden or even dangerous, but we should start from the perspective that it can be valuable. What makes it valuable is the idea that can be created within the space – not its history of rental returns. Too often, underutilised space is treated it is of low-to-no value because of its dark past and not its promise for the future. If you think that way, any new idea for the space seems like a good idea and any revenue it makes is a good outcome.

First In Is Not Always Best Dressed

Underutilised space is useful to certain types of (generally) young and creative artists and businesses. There is a prevailing narrative within parts of this group, particularly within the arts, that their people all have really worthwhile practices, and that landlords lack vision or are just crazy for not just throwing over vacant spaces to creatives.

It’s not that simple. For a start, filling a space with one operator means you can’t fill it with another. A landlord could give an artist free space and preclude a great business that employs a bunch of people and returns rent instead of churning out stencil prints. Or, by accepting the first artist (or artist representative) that knocks on the door, the landlord light miss a better artist who walks in a few days later. Beware the people that behave as if underutilised space is something to which creatives are entitled – they are likely to overvalue what they provide and undervalue what is provided to them.

Connect Your Fortunes

Charity is not the best policy when it comes to underutilised space. People who get things for free often take them for granted and a reciprocal relationship is a much better way to get good tenants and outcomes. By linking the fortunes of landlord and lessee everyone is motivated to do their bit. Turnover rents are an obvious way to do this. Collective and co-ordinated approaches to marketing and activation are another. The holy grail is to get absolutely everyone to understand not only their rights to a space, but also their responsibility for it. 

Post-Covid Cracks

Covid has opened cracks in our life. There are biological cracks for a virus to infiltrate. Cracks in the edifice of modern work. The primacy of globalism is cracking. Cracks in our business models, in our buildings and along the once-leased streets. Cracks are opening all around us, if you choose to see them

The cracks allow light to shine in dark spaces – they create room for new ideas to take seed. As we bring our cities back to life let’s be intentional with how we fill these cracks, with the hope that in time they are opened up further by the people rather than closed out by the city.