Aspex

Aspex exists to support emerging artists, expose the creative process, and engage new audiences with visual art. They achieve this through a programme of free exhibitions, off-site projects and participation events in and near to Portsmouth. 

Aspex’s Gallery is located in the historic Portsmouth Docks area. Established in 1981, their turnover in 2021 was approximately £350,000 with a staff team equivalent to seven full-time posts.

Project facts

Client: Aspex

Location: Portsmouth, Hampshire

Design team:

• Architects – Manalo & White
• Main contractors – Gary Edmonds (Building IS)     
• Quantity surveyor – Nicholas Ralph (independent consultant)
• Lighting specialists – iGuzzini
• Electrical systems – Feltech
• Project management – in-house

Procurement strategy: traditional 

Build time: three months, April to June 2016, for the construction element; the landscaping and purchase of the mobile art studio took place over a longer period.

Overall cost: £200,000

Sources of funding:

• Arts Council England (£158,000)
• trusts and foundations (Foyle Foundation, Garfield Weston)
• organisational reserves. 
  
   

General description of works

This was a modest but multi-strand capital investment project. The construction element was relatively small within the overall budget and was essentially about a reconfiguration of the 625m2 building footprint. From the outside, the landscaping and layout changes were to improve visibility and visitor navigation. The reception and cafe areas were re-organised to provide a new education space and an artist’s studio. The education space was moved to occupy the heart of the building and to benefit from better light, and enlarged with improved wheelchair access and clever storage solutions. The cafe was rotated 180 degrees and a new servery installed. The toilet facilities were upgraded. The shop was rotated to a more prominent place near the welcome area. 

The project also involved basic infrastructure improvements including: upgrading lighting to replace halogen fittings with energy efficient LEDs; updating the heating system; a digital upgrade including new learning space presentation equipment, including audio, participatory equipment, office IT and a new till system; an upgraded alarm system; and reconditioned doors. The final component was the purchase of a vehicle for outreach activity.

Case study

A revisioning process set the context for this capital project. Having undertaken a major development in 2006 (led by Glen Howells Architects), the team had a beautiful and highly accessible venue, but wanted to go further in manifesting their mission and business plan, with a focus on revealing the creative process, placing learning at its heart and increasing audience engagement. 

Other drivers included:

• Wanting to establish clarity and logic to the visitor flow and make people feel comfortable in a contemporary art gallery.
• The need to accommodate growth in participation work (in the venue and across Portsmouth).
• Updating operational infrastructure to improve efficiency, reduce overheads and reduce environmental impact.
• Improving the hires  potential of the space.

Strength of community connection

 

Aspex’s Gallery occupies a ground floor space within the Vulcan Building, a large former naval storehouse heritage building located in the historic Portsmouth Docks area. Their immediate neighbourhood is a combination of residential use, the Gunwharf Quay retail centre and the leisure opportunity of the coastal walkway. Within this shaping context, the gallery strives to offer a balance between sustained community relationships and one-off or less regular encounters with their work.

Demystifying the creative process was central to the redesign. Key features include the improvements to the learning spaces, now placed at the heart of the building, and the creation of a studio, with a window onto the work of practising artists in residence. The visitor welcome has also been improved through physical changes. Joanne Bushnell, the Director, explains, “We previously had two entrances; this was confusing for visitors and difficult for us in terms of managing their flow, keeping track of numbers and so on. We had to signal the change in layout from the outside – and used exterior garden planters to do this visually. So planters seem a small detail but they in fact play a critical part in driving the visitor journey. Now you arrive in the shop, where you can feel comfortable (we all know what to do in the shop) and from there we can indicate where to go.” 

There are countless examples at Aspex of small details that reinforce the sense of care of visitors, and visitor’s reciprocal care of the gallery. Bushnell recounts how one of the neighbours has shown her affection for the gallery by donating plants to fill the garden planters mentioned above – even planting and weeding them on an ongoing basis.

The gallery’s connection to the community is also reinforced by purposeful buying from local suppliers. Seeing the potential through their 2014 collaboration with Anglepoise in the Creating Balance project, Aspex have continued to source fittings from partners in the city. Fabric for cushions comes from Timorous Beasties and deckchairs were supplied by Southsea Deckchairs.

 

A more productive building

Having lived with the building for a decade, the team at Aspex had a strong sense of the relatively small tweaks that could have a big impact on operational effectiveness and productivity. Bushnell explains, “we had developed our business model and a way of working that has stood us in good stead, but elements of the building were working against us. Imagine the dream but with the plug sockets in the wrong place!”

Project planning was organised so the gallery could stay open throughout the construction phase, building on the knowledge and relationships of some key contractors from the 2006 renovation project to ensure a smooth process. This meant there was continuity of the service to their community and limited loss of revenue over the summer months that closure might have entailed. They were also able to activate the artist’s studio as soon as possible, having been successful in securing funding for an Engage/Alexandra Reinhardt Memorial Award residency.

The change in layout has been highly impactful. The area nicknamed the “corridor of uncertainty” (a slightly lost and under-utilised space) has become the shop, while the new learning room has improved facilities for workshops. Learning has greater presence, and work created through this strand which used to be hidden can now be showcased in the exhibition space. Visiting schools particularly benefit from the additional space and the practicalities it offers, for example accommodating children as they eat lunches. The team delight in the clever storage solutions that improve the multi-functionality of the space. The increased flexibility means they can better cater for groups with different needs – for example people with dementia doing an activity in the learning space, with their carers within eye-shot in the cafe. The changes enable more revenue generation, for example from hires, with materials easily stored away and furniture rearranged, leaving a clear, attractive space for external users.

Meeting a growing demand

In addition to their south Portsmouth base, Aspex also works across the city region more broadly, with a variety of partners and venues such as schools and festivals. By including a mobile art space (a specially kitted out and branded van) as the final element of the project, Aspex have extended their engagement work, taking more visual arts experiences out to different communities – often in the north of the city where there is limited existing cultural infrastructure and fewer opportunities to engage. The mobile studio presents a face of the organisation that is more professional, more welcoming and more effective as a signpost for the free activities at the gallery. Demand for Aspex’s participation work had already grown threefold when the studio came into use and demand continues to outstrip what they can supply. 

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